Just a Stage Kiss
by WellWishes
Summary: There's a fine line between love and hate. What happens when Jade and Tori are partnered together for another class at Hollywood Arts, only this time it's not stage fighting, it's stage kissing. Will that line be crossed, or redrawn thicker than before?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is my first Victorious story, I hope you like it.**

**"Jeez, Vega, it's only a stage kiss". Tori and Jade are partnered once again for an acting class. Only this time, instead of pretending to hit each other around the head with canes, they have to do something much, much worse: stage kiss. What'll happen when the two girls who supposedly hate each other are left alone to practice for their latest class?Eventual Jori, some Bade. Rating will probably change.**

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><p>Sikowitz padded barefoot across the small stage in his classroom, absentmindedly sipping on his coconut. He seemed to have totally forgotten that he was half way through teaching a class, a class who were waiting impatiently for their teacher to come down from what ever planet he currently inhabited and assign them the project they were supposed to be working on. A couple of students coughed awkwardly in hope of getting the odd acting teachers attention, but he just continued to hum merrily to himself.<p>

"SIKOWITZ!"

Jades yell made Sikowitz jump, his coconut flung into the air in surprise and landed on top of Robbie's head, much to the poor boys annoyance and Rex's amusement.

"Oh yes, I was teaching a class!"

This comment earned many eye rolls from students and a groan from Jade.

"So! Your assignment!" Sikowitz made a drum roll sound with his feet, copied immediately by the class, then stopped suddenly, grinning. "Your assignment is to create a scene involving a believable kiss. Not some namby-pamby peck-on-the-cheek type kiss, I want romance! Passion! Love!"

Sikowitz twirled on the spot and the class exchanged looks before he turned back to them, putting on a serious face.

"Stage kissing is very much like real kissing" He explained, pacing before them once more. "Except, it's on a stage, in front of a crowd of people and usually with someone you have no real feelings for and maybe no attraction to at all… okay, so maybe it's not like real kissing, but the point is: you have to make it believable!"

He walked to the back of the stage and picked up a top hat. "I have placed all of your names into this hat and shall pull them out one at a time to relieve who your partner is for this project. I want you all to remember that stage kissing is a very big part of acting and just as big a part of your final grade."

"Um" A boy from the back of the class raised his hand. "Shouldn't you have two hats? One for boys and one for girls?"

Sikowitz looked at the top hat, bewildered, as if he had only just noticed it, then he chuckled. "I _knew_ there was something I was supposed to do! No matter! All part of the fun!"

He stuck his hand into the hat and rummaged around for a moment before pulling out a slip of paper. "Okay, first: Cat and" He took another slip "Eli!"

Cat giggled and grinned over at Eli, who was trying not to blush.

Sikowitz continued to pull names from the hat, resulting in some very odd pairings including Andre and a girl who had left Hollywood Arts the previous year and, most disturbingly, Robbie got paired with:

"Sinjin!"

The two boys looked over at each other in a mixture of horror and humiliation, while the class sniggered behind them.

"That only leaves four names!" Sikowitz called, glancing into the hat then back at the class before pulling out two more slips of paper. "Beck and Trina!"

"Trina?" Beck half laughed. "She's not even in this class."

"Oh yes. But she skipped this lesson last year due to some weird mouth disease or something, so she has to retake" Sikowitz waved a hand dismissively then reached back into the hat. "This leaves only two people"

The class held its breath, already knowing the pairing, but hoping their teacher had made a mistake. Unfortunately, the final two names read out were exactly those they were expecting:

"Tori and Jade!"


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: You decided to keep reading? Are you mental! =P.  
>I realise I forgot to put a disclaimer at the start, but you <em>must <em>be crazy to think I own Victorious! But, yeah, I don't.**

**From now on the chapters will be writen from either Tori or Jade's point of view.**

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><p><strong>POV: Tori<strong>

I gulped, already knowing the two names Sikowitz was about to pull out of that top hat, but praying that he'd made a mistake, like he had with so many others in the class already. Sadly, I was wrong.

"Tori and Jade!"

Our names seemed to bounce around the silent class. I could feel all eyes flickering between me and Jade as the tattooed girl in front of me turned slowly in her seat, her green eyes piercing me from under that trade mark scowl. She raised her eyebrows and, yep, there it is, that cruel smirk spread across her face, the same smirk she put on when our names were read out for the stage fighting class, the "I'm plotting something nasty for you, Vega" smirk. I tried to smile cockily back at her, but it came across more of an "I ate something bad for breakfast and now have a stomach ache" grimace.

After what felt like an eternity, she turned back in her seat. I knew the sneer was still playing across her lips by the slightly uncomfortable look Beck gave her before turning his attention back to Sikowitz, who was rattling on about the importance of stage kis- hold on a sec. _Stage kissing! _I've just been partnered with Jade West, the girl who hates my guts, for _stage kissing! _My hand was raised and my throat cleared for attention before I'd even processed the thought properly.

"Is there any way we could swap partners with someone else in the class?" Hell, I'd swap with anyone right now, I'd even take Robbie's place and kiss Sinjin.

"Oh no" Sikowitz laughed "Nope. The hat has spoken! You are to remain with your designated partner until these two weeks are up. No swapping, no changing, no faking illness to get out of it"

Chiz.

"What about me!" Andre called, his hand half raised in the air. "My partner doesn't even go here any more!"

"Ah, yes. There may be a few minor difficulties along the way, but I'm sure you'll sort them out amongst yourselves"

"But-"

The rest of Andres protest was drowned out by the bell. I jumped to my feet at the sound, ready to make a fast exit from the room, if only my bag hadn't got caught on the chair.

"Hi, Tori"

I paused in my wrestling match with my bag to cringe at Jades sickly sweet voice.

"Hi, Jade" I sighed, spinning to face her. I could see Beck hovering awkwardly in the background.

"Ready for our kiss?" She puckered her lips, winking at me and I swallowed the lump that had worked its way into my throat. All I could do was stare at her, unable to think of any sort of reply or rational thought except _Run for it, Vega!_

"See you later, _partner_" She laughed as she left the room, Beck following along behind her, offering me a sympathetic smile as he passed.

I remained frozen to the spot; the strap of my stuck bag fell for my limp hand. Why was I so scared all of a sudden? Surely this was as bad for Jade as it was for me. Maybe she'll go easy on me, seeing as it's her grade too- no. This is Jade we're talking about. She'll find some way for me to fail and her to pass.

"Tori?"

Cat's chirpy voice broke into my thoughts.

"You're going to miss lunch if you stand there like a statue all day" She grinning, detaching my bag from the chair for me. "Or is this part of an acting exercise?"

"No, it's not" I said, letting out a breath I didn't know I'd been holding. "I was just thinking"

"About what?"

"Nothing, really"

"Oh! I think about nothing sometimes, but then I starting thinking about how I'm thinking about nothing, then I realise I'm thinking about something and-"

I tuned out the rest of Cat's rambles while we walked to lunch together. She's a lovely girl and some of the things she says are actually kind of interesting, but right now I had more important things to worry about.

Xxx

I toyed with the salad I was supposed to be eating, feeling a small sense of déjà vu. This felt the same as what had happened after we found out we were partnered for stage fighting: Jade sat at a table across from me, talking to Beck, probably about how she was going to humiliate me later. And me, sat with Andre and Cat, stabbing at my innocent salad while I watched the girl I was going to have to kiss this time, rather than pretend to hit around the face with a cane. Frankly, I'd rather take what had happened that time all over again, rather than this.

My eyes followed Beck as he almost reluctantly got up from his seat, heading over to my sister to tell her the news of their partnership. I looked back over to the table to find Jade had also left and jumped as her voice sounded right next to my ear.

"Budge up, Vega. You're taking up the whole table!"

Jade nudged me out of the way with her hip as she sat down and I felt goosebumps erupt from where she'd touched the bare skin of my arm. I gulped, again.

"Hi Jade!" Cat said brightly, earning a sarcastic smile from the girl beside me, although Cat seemed to take this as a good sign, as she giggled lightly while eating the rest of her lunch.

"So, Andre." Jade said, moodily playing with her food. "What're you going to do about your non existent partner?"

Andre shrugged. "I'm gonna have to wing it. I'll probably end up bringing some mannequin in and have to kiss that in front of the whole class"

"I wonder what mannequins do when no one's around"

Jade glared at Cat before angrily attacking her own salad once more. The rest of the lunch break passed in silence, and I was all too aware of how close Jade was to me, something she'd usually avoid. I suddenly didn't feel too hungry any more. Butterflies were churning around my stomach. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what I was feeling right now, nerves, humiliation, whatever it was, I did not like it.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Sorry for the wait. This was a pain to write because I have all these ideas for the nex chapter, but I needed something in between otherwise it wouldn't make much sense (plus I've been busy + I'm useless at updating).  
>So... enjoy! And I'll hopefully have the chapter 4 up soon.<strong>

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><p><strong>Jade's POV.<strong>

"Tori. Freakin'. Vega." I growled, shredding my lettuce with my favourite pair of scissors.

"I know, babe" Beck sighed, placing a hand on my shoulder which I shrugged away as soon as he made contact. Beck retreated back on the bench, taking a bite of his apple and running a hand through his long hair.

"Swap with me" I demanded, turning to face my boyfriend and waving my scissors in his face.

"What!" he choked.

"Swap with me!" I repeated, slicing my pickle into pieces vigorously.

Beck raised an eyebrow and shot me a smirk. "You'd rather I kiss Tori and you kiss Trina?" He laughed and patted my head, earning a stern look. "Just play this out and see how it goes. It may turn out better than you think."

I huffed in response and resumed massacring my salad. We sat in silence together; I could feel Vega's eyes watching me the entire time making me uncomfortable. I stare at the table, determined not to look up and catch those brown eyes, I didn't want to give Vega the pleasure of knowing I was just as nervous about this as she was. Not because I was going to have to kiss a girl on stage, I had no problem with that, but it just had to be _her, _didn't it? The girl who just strolled into Hollywood Arts without any real effort, the girl who has been stealing my parts every time there's a show, the girl who I-

"There's Trina" I heard Beck groan, interrupting my train of thoughts. He slowly got to his feet and leant over to kiss me on the forehead. "Go sit over there with the others and talk to them for a bit, babe. I'm going to have to talk to Trina about our predicament."

I glared at him as he left and reluctantly moved from my seat at the table that didn't occupy a really annoying girl, to one that did. I nudge said annoying girl out of the way with my hip- not a good move, Jade- and strike up a monotonous conversation with Andre about his lack of stage kissing partner, anything to keep my mind off Tori Vega. She was sat beside me, picking at her salad, glancing up at me every so often as if she was afraid I was about to bite her head off at any moment, which wasn't exactly what I had in mind but- I stab again at my food. Do not think like that, Jade.

"Hey!"

Trina Vega's voice broke the silence that had settled over the table. Great, just what I needed. Beck sat himself next to me with a small grin and the older Vega sat herself between me and her sister while picking a pickle from Tori's abandoned food tray.

"So, is everybody looking forward to the stage kissing class?" She said in her annoyingly cheery voice.

Andre, Tori and I each grunted in response while Cat giggled. "It'll be fun!"

For you, maybe.

"I'm coming round yours tonight, Vega" I said, catching everyone at the table by surprise. Tori looked up at me in confusion and I roll my eyes. "For this class."

"Oh" Great input there, Vega.

"Cool! You and Beck should come to ours so we can all practice!" Trina grinned.

I turned to glare at her. "Sure. Whatever." and went back to my salad that lay in tatters on my plate.

"Cool, I'll see you tonight"

And with that, the older girl got up and walked off, leaving the table in silence.

XXX

"Here we are" Beck pointed out unnecessarily as we pulled up to the Vega's house.

"Wonderful" I said dryly.

"Come on, babe" He nudged me while wearing that smirk again. I glared, something I'd been doing a lot lately, and got out of the car, slamming the door shut behind me forcefully.

"Let's get this over with" I sighed as we reached the front door and jammed my finger on the bell. There was a yell from the other side, followed by some scrabbling and more yelled until, finally, a flustered looking Tori opened up.

"Took you long enough" I growled, pushing past her to get inside. What! It was cold out there! I heard Beck mutter an apology for me from behind and roll my eyes. "So, how are we doing this?"

I looked around at the house I had been to too many times for my liking. Everything was the same as ever, typical Tori; Trina was lead out on one of the sofas, the tv remote in one hand, flicking though the channels, and a pickle in the other. I wrinkle my nose in disgust. Great. _That _was going to be stage kissing _my_ boyfriend while I was stuck with it's irritating little sister, who I could feel was watching me again.

"Beck and I can practice in my room" Trina suggested. I turned to look fiercely at her and she gulps down the piece of pickle she'd just bitten off. "Or we could stay here."

"Whatever." I said in a monotone. "You and Beck stay here. Tori and I shall go up stairs to figure out what we're going to do."

I saw the younger Vega open her mouth to protest, but it was too late, I'd already grabbed her wrist and dragged her up the stairs to the bedroom I had been in once before, leaving Trina and Beck to stand there staring after at us in confusion. I didn't let go of Tori's wrist until we were both in her room and the door was shut behind us, leaving us alone, together, just me and Vega- Stop it, Jade!

"So" I said nonchalantly, dropping my bag on the floor and wandering over to her desk to nosey through the assortment of papers on there. Tori was just stood in the middle of the room, gawping at me like some dozy goldfish, so I waved a hand in front of her face. "Oi! Vega!"

"Huh?" She snapped out of her daze and I rolled my eyes again.

"Come on. Ideas. Have you got any?"

"Erm..."

Just as I thought, useless as ever. I throw myself into her desk chair while she collapses onto the edge of her bed and we sit in silence just like at the lunch table. This was going to be a long night.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Here! I did it! ={) Sorry, I'm not very good at updating, am I? I hope this chapter makes up for it!  
>I can't make any promises on when the next one will be up. I keep misplacing the notes I've made, and I really need them to write.<strong>

**Enjoy!**

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><p><span>Chapter 4<span>

**Tori's POV.**

Okay, so let's go over this situation again. I'm sat in my room, alone with Jade. My sister is with Beck downstairs, and, oh, we're all supposed to be practicing stage kissing. Yeah, sometimes I wonder if joining Hollywood Arts was a good idea.

"Jeez, Vega! Are you just going to sit there gawping all night or are we going to get some work done!"

Jade's voice made me snapped me back to reality, that, or the fact she kicked the edge of my bed, very near to where I was sat. The dark haired girl sat in my desk chair, an eyebrow raised in question as she glared intently at me.

"Er, right."

Jade groaned and slammed her head against my desk in annoyance, making me jump. She was visibly just as annoyed with the arrangement as I was; it was just like the stage fighting all over again, only worse. I couldn't help but watch Jade as she picked her head back up off my desk, the way she swept her long hair impatiently out of her eyes, still scowling, but it maybe more from the blow to the forehead she had just given herself.

"Vega! For chiz sake!"

I'd been staring again. What was wrong with me! Maybe it was just the nerves or something. I don't know. All I knew for sure was that the pen Jade threw at me to get my attention had really hurt when it struck me in the eye.

"OW!" I yelled, covering my streaming eye with my hand while glaring at the pale girl with my good eye.

"Should've been paying attention" Jade shrugged, reaching over to pick up the offending pen and twirl it around in her fingers.

"All right, you now have my undivided attention, you highness." I mocked. That really hurt and right now I was in no mood to put up with Jade and her random attacks on me. "Have you thought of anything?"

"As a matter of fact, I have." The goth girl grinned, thrusting a notepad into my lap, tapping at the page with my pen as she pointed out her ideas. "You see, I thought we could do something high school related. You be the nerdy girl and I'll be the popular one-"

"Why do I have to be the nerd!"

"Just shh, Vega." Jade glared. She pinched the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes for a second before continuing. "Look. You be the nerd, I'll be the popular girl, right? And the story is that they've been best friends since they were little kids, but when they got into high school, they started to drift apart a bit. The popular girl went off and made a bunch of new friends, getting into all of the chiz that little teeny bopper girls like, while the nerdy girl went off and did whatever nerdy kids do, like, I dunno, read books or play with puppets or something."

I rolled my eyes at the blatant dig at Robbie, almost opening my mouth to say something, but Jade quickly spoke over the top.

"Yeah, yeah, defend your little boyfriend later."

"He's not my boyfriend!" I said quickly, in a little more disgust than I was meant to, which seemed to amuse Jade greatly.

"Whatever. Can I continue?" I nod. "Good. So, they've been friends for years, drifted apart, blah, blah, blah. But, they'd been meeting up every so often, in secret because the popular girl doesn't want all the other popular morons to know that she's friends with a dork. Basically, our play starts when the nerdy girl comes up to confront the popular one about this, saying she's sick of being this girls dirty little secret and says that if she really wants to be friends, then she has to prove it."

Right now I was stunned by how much work Jade had already put into this assignment, even in the few short hours we'd had to work on it. I just nodded in the right places, allowing the girl to tell me all of her ideas.

"Anyway, this popular girl has a secret, you see." She smirked at this. "She secretly fancies the pants off of this little nerd, but she's been too afraid to admit it, partly because she doesn't want to ruin this reputation she's built up for herself, but also because she's scared she'll ruin the friendship she has with the girl. But when she's faced with the ultimatum, she spills her secret and bam! They kiss."

Jade sank back into the desk chair looking pretty pleased with herself. "Well?"

"Sounds great!" I admitted. It really did sound good, and was much better than anything I had come up with, which was, well, nothing. "Hey! Maybe I could be Louise Nordoff again!" I chuckled.

"No way!" Jade shot down quickly.

"Why not!"

"'Cause it's bad enough I have to kiss _you_. There's no way I'm doing it if you're wearing that stupid disguise."

"Well." I fake offence, but only earn an eye roll from Jade. "Fine then. Shall we just work on a script for now?"

"Go for it." The pale girl said without much enthusiasm. She dropped herself onto the floor with her notebook in hand and looked up at me to do the same so we sat opposite each other on my rug, the notebook between us and a pen each.

"So…" I said slowly, unsure of what to write.

"Why don't we improvise?" Jade suggested, scrawling the title 'Script Ideas' across the top of the paper. "We'll just play out the scene now and jot down anything we think is good."

"Sounds like a plan!" I grin, clapping my hands together.

XXX

"Look, Hannah! I'm sick and tired of being your dirty little secret! If you really want to be my friend, then prove it!"

It was about an hour after Jade had told me all about her ideas from the performance and the two of us we both in full swing of an improv session. I, the nerdy girl called Mary, was up on my feet, pacing around my room as I worked the frustration my character would feel at the situation. Jade, the popular Hannah, was also on her feet, darting back and forth from where her character stood in the middle of the room to the notebook on the desk, which she was using to capture any good lines or ideas the two of us came up with. So far we'd filled a decent couple of pages with all sorts of notes from words to costume ideas. I hated to admit it, but I was having a lot of fun.

"I'm sorry, Mary. I truly am." 'Hannah' whispered once Jade had come back from writing my line down. "It's not that I don't want to be friends with you. I just- I want more than that."

The pale girl paused, running over to the desk and scribbling down what she had just said.

"Mary looks at Hannah in shock" She muttered as she wrote. "Hannah leans forward and takes a hold of both of Mary's hands, pulling the girl closer into a soft, meaningful kiss."

Jade turned around to face me again, leaning back against the desk with a smile and I gulp. I'd almost forgotten about the kiss.

"Maybe we'll save that bit 'til later" I laugh nervously.

"Maybe." Jade said, pushed herself from the table and make her way towards me, taking both of my hands in hers. "Or we could just get it over and done with."

Before I could react, Jade had stepped expertly back into character, squeezing my fingers lightly as she looked sincerely into my eyes.

"I want more than that." She whispered, leaning in closer. "I love you, Mary."

Jade went to close the gap between us. I could feel her warm breath on my face; her lips were so close I could almost taste them. And I panic.

"Wait!"

"What!" Jade yelled, very much like she had done when I called 'Butternut' before performing our stage fight. She dropped my hands to glare at me, waiting for an answer.

"I- I just-" I couldn't explain why I suddenly felt so uncomfortable. I mean, actors stage kiss other actors all the time, don't they? Heck, I'd even stage kissed Beck in my first week of being at Hollywood Arts. So why was I finding this so difficult to deal with?

"It feels weird." I concluded. Jade raised an eyebrow at me and folded her arms across her chest, looking annoyed. "I mean, because Beck and Trina are just downstairs. You know, your boyfriend and my sister. It feels weird to be practicing stage… kissing while they're in the same house."

I trail off from my terrible excuse, but it was the only real reason I could currently think of for my sudden panic. Jade just rolled her eyes. She then stormed forward, grabbed the notebook and shoved it roughly into her bag before she wrapped her fingers around my wrist, like she would whenever she convinced me to talk to her in the janitors closet, and dragged me out of my bedroom, back downstairs to where Beck and Trina were busy working out ideas for their own play.

"Hey!" Jade called as pulled me in front of the two of them. "We're going to my place. Vega here-" She jabbed her thumb unnecessarily in my direction. "- is wussing out on me in the middle of rehearsal."

"Wussing out on you?" Trina repeated, looking from me to Jade in confusion.

"Yeah. She's just being a wimp, so I thought it'd be easier for the both of us if we just went over to mine, then she wouldn't be so damn uncomfortable."

I felt a little confused myself, now. Why was this such a big deal to Jade that she was willing to take me to her house just to make me feel more comfortable. Not to mention leaving her boyfriend alone in the house with my sister. She must have some twisted reason behind it, this was Jade, after all.

"Okay, babe." Beck smiled, standing up to clap me on the back in a very boy-like style of comfort then walking over to peck Jade on the cheek. "Just be good. I think Sikowitz would like Tori to be in one piece when you do your performance. Kidding!" He added quickly. He must've spotted the horrified look that appeared on my face at his words.

"I sure hope you are." I muttered, catching sight of the smirk Jade was wearing.

"Don't worry, I'll take good care of you, Vega." She said, tugging at the wrist she was still holding as she pulled me towards the door. "And I'll bring you back in one piece. See you later, Beck. Other Vega."

Jade saluted to her boyfriend and my sister as we left, I just grimaced at them, half hoping that one of them would pull me back and save me for whatever nightmare Jade was bound to put me through.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Up-ing the rating for language, it may be up-ed again in later chapters, I haven't figured out fully where this one's going yet.**

**Enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Jade's POV<strong>

Chapter 5

Why was I stuck with the most annoying, frustrating, annoying, pain in the neck, _annoying_ girl in the class to do this stupid stage kiss with? I'd spent _forever _working on that damn idea for this stupid thing and now she has to go and ruin it by being all scared! I almost threw Vega into my car just to get her to stop dragging her feet nervously as we left her house, seriously, anyone would think I'd just kidnapped her and was about to kill her! Which maybe wasn't such a bad idea right now, but I'd rather not get chucked into juvy because of Tori Vega. I jumped into the drivers' seat as she fumbled around with her seatbelt and I could see the look of fear in her eyes, which I laugh at.

"What!" She jumped, seatbelt flying out of her hands.

"Nothin'" I smirked just to irritate her.

"If you're going to be like this then-" Vega grabbed the door handle, about to climb out of the car and run back to her house, presumably for what she thought was safety away from me. I should've let her go, but, against my better judgement, I lay a hand genially on her other arm, stopping her from leaving.

"Tori, look." I said softly. Honestly, and I'd never admit it to anyone, a part of me felt a bit sorry for the girl if she was getting all worked up over something like this. It was a very small, very hidden, part, but it was there all the same, tugging on my heart strings and telling me to be nice to the younger Vega, just this once.

"Look." I repeated. She appeared to be frozen; her eyes watched my hand warily. "I don't like this as much as you, damn, I probably hate it more! But it's got to be done, so we might as well do it, okay?"

She nodded, retracting her hand from the door as I do the same from her arm, then turned back to the steering wheel, wrapping my fingers a little tighter than usual around the leather.

"Besides, I'm not having my grades ruined possibly leading to my career in pieces, all because of you." I added, looking back to smirk at her again.

She rolled her eyes, but nodded all the same. I slammed my foot a little harder than necessary on the gas pedal as I pull my concentration to the road, but I couldn't help but glance every so often at Vega as she sat in the passenger seat looking awkward and out of place, her fingers either fiddling with each other or picking at the material of the insanely tight skinny jeans she was wearing.

"Jade? The road." Tori's voice suddenly broke my thoughts and I whip my attention back to what's in front of me. Damn, was I just staring at Vega's legs? And did she just catch me staring? I gripped the wheel even tighter, annoyed at myself for being distracted by Vega's legs, of all the things I could've been distracted by. I thanked God, or whoever, for the make up I had applied to my face earlier as it hid the blush I could feel trying to glow on my cheeks. Jade West never blushed, not in front of people, especially not in front of Tori Vega. It was a stupid, giggly girly thing to do, something I'd associate with the Latina next to me rather than myself. Damn! She was so… annoying!

We made it to my house in record time, granted I was going quite a bit over the speed limit to get the awkward, silent car journey over with. Vega stumbled out of my car as I jam my keys in the front door and throw myself into the place I had to call home. No one else was in, thankfully, and I watch Vega glance around apprehensively as she walks in as if she was waiting from some masked murderer to jump out at her.

"All right, you can admire the place later." I said

I took the girls wrist again and yanked her to my bedroom. I would've been quite happy to stay in the front room, and, by the look on her face, Tori would've been too, but my parents were bound to be back at any time and I didn't want them interrupting my work. I never told them what I was doing with school, not that my father was bothered, mother feigned an interest at times, but over all, they didn't care. As for my sister, well, she was too busy being the perfect little princess child to care what her older sibling was doing with her life, unless it made her look better.

"Here." I let go of Tori's wrist and all but throw her into the room, causing her to trip over her own feet and collapsed onto my floor. I rolled my eyes and fought the urge to laugh in her face, only allowing a small smile to break across my mouth as she pushed herself to her feet, rubbing her backside and mumbling an "Ow."

"Awww, poor Vega." I chuckled sarcastically, patting her head mockingly as I passed to sit on my bed.

"Can we just get on with this?" She whined, finding my desk chair and sitting gingerly in it.

"Whatever." I sighed, chucking the notebook at her. "From the top?"

Xxx

It was getting dark. Vega and I had been working on our small play intently for who knows how long now and so far we'd written up and acted out pretty much every little thing, besides the most significant part: the kiss. We'd rehearsed the whole play through once, and as soon as we got to the all important piece, Vega chickened out on me again. She'd performed her part without fail, looking at me as if she was trying to prove to me that she was at least half the perfect, flawless actor everyone else thought she was. I had to admit, not out loud, that she wasn't too bad. I had seen her act before and, for someone who was thrown into the deep end before she'd really begun to swim, she'd done a good job with her parts. However, she spluttered hastily through her lines leading up to the kiss and as soon as I'd said my part and stepped forward to take her hands, Tori took a step back.

"Maybe… maybe we could just do that bit when we perform the play in class" She suggested.

"Are you kidding me!" I spat back, a little too frustrated by how the girl was reacting. It's not like I wanted to kiss her, did I? No. No, of course not. She was just being a wuss. "You'd probably throw up all over me and die of nerves on stage!"

I threw my hands up in the air and kicked at my floor to relieve a little of the anger building inside of me. I ran a hand through my hair then walked over to where our ideas notebook lay on top of my bed, scribbles, crossing outs and reworked lines littering the crisp white pages, but still an almost complete script sat before me. Tori tentatively walked up behind me, standing on her tip toes to peek over my shoulder as I picked it up, resisting the urge to swat her over the head with the spiral bound pages just to knock some sense into her, and to see how much it would hurt.

"Alright." I sighed, twirling the blue biro around my fingers. "We'll go through this one more time before I take you home, okay?" Tori nodded and I point my pen towards the end of the page, indicating one of her characters lines. "We'll start from here, because I think it's the part that needs the most work."

"Okay." Vega said, carefully taking the notebook from my hands and reading through her parts again. "Right, got it. Ready?"

"As I'll ever be." I replied, taking a couple of deep breaths before slipping expertly into character.

"You don't even like me!" Tori cried, the way she said it almost believable. And I suppose it was, in a way, if this was a conversation between me and her, not our characters.

"That's not true." I croaked back. My character was meant to be on the verge of tears for this scene, but it was too early into the rehearsal to be putting that much effort in right now. "You know that's not true! I do like you! I always have!"

"Then why do you act like you hate me around everyone else?" Tori's character, Mary, hollered, pointing an accusing finger at my chest. "Why do you push me around and treat me like dirt, then come crying to me when something goes wrong?"

She was doing a good job this time, I was impressed. I looked up at the Latina with sad eyes. "Mary, I-"

"No, Hannah. I can't do this anymore. I'm sick of being your dirty little secret. If you want to be friends, then prove it!"

That was the first time all night that Vega had managed to say the line without messing it up somehow. There was determination etched all over her face, although she was clearly still apprehensive about what was to come, this time I thought we might actually get somewhere with this.

"I'm sorry, Mary. I truly am." My character whispered as I took a small step forward. Tori stood her ground this time. "It's not that I don't want to be friends with you. I just- I want more than that."

I shortened the distance between us, surprised as Vega let me take both her hands in my own rather than turning and fleeing like before. I heard her gulp and watched her eyes flick nervously back and forth between my own as I tugged her slowly closer, not letting the chance to finally get this over with slip by.

And then, within the space of a heartbeat, my lips were pressed to hers. I could feel and taste her lip gloss (cherry) as my lips moved against her stunned mouth until, gradually, Vega responded, making my heart leapt into my throat and all my senses catch fire. There was something, like a spark that had just been ignited, welling up inside of me, causing me to pull the younger Vega closer, pressing my mouth harder to her soft lips and for a moment I was lost, for a moment all I wanted was this. Then there was the sound of a door slamming somewhere in the house and both me and Vega jumped apart as if electrocuted.

We looked at each other, both stunned by what had just happened. I touched a finger to my mouth, lips still tingling from Vegas kiss; I should be disgusted really, but that's not how I felt, my heart, that was beating at a million miles an hour, threatening to jump out of my chest, was now aching for something more. Undeniably, part of my _liked _Vega, but there was nothing more than a reluctant acquaintanceship I built up with the girl because she had nothing better to do that hang around with _my_ friends… right? I shook my head, not wanting to think too much into whatever the hell that was, and turned my attention back to the source of my discomfort to find her wearing an expression akin to terror.

"Jeez, Vega, it was only a stage kiss." I gulped, unsure if I was trying to convince her, myself or both. "Don't look so frightened."

She flashed me a rabbit-caught-in-the-headlights look before turning on her heel and gathering up her purple hoodie, the only thing I'd allowed her to pick up before dragging her from her house.

"It's getting late." She said in a small voice, looking anywhere but at me. "I should probably be heading back.

"Right." I agreed, slightly thrown by the edge to her voice. I couldn't quite tell what it was, but there was something there, almost like hurt. I scooped up my jacket and took the car keys from my pocket, spinning the ring around my finger. "Want me to take you?"

"Uh." She checked her phone, but even I knew her drama queen of a sister wouldn't want to come out at this time to pick her up. "Sure." She said reluctantly.

I nodded and motioned her to follow me through the house. Whoever had slammed the door that short time ago had vanished, leaving me free to barge out of the front door and take the long, silent, even-more-awkward-than-before trip back to the Vega's house.

Xxx

Hours later, I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling as I tried and failed to sleep. The kiss, it was still playing on my mind, refusing to leave. I thought back to it, how Tori's mouth responded perfectly to mine, how her lips were so soft, so much softer than Beck's, how it almost felt… good to be kissing her. No, that wasn't right. There was no _way _I liked kissing Tori Vega, it was just a caught in the moment thing, we were both highly emotionally charged because of what our characters were feeling. But there was something else there…

I screwed my eyes shut, but all I could picture was her. Tori Vega, with her infectious smile, perfect cheekbones, beautiful brown eyes, full, shiny lips that begged to be kissed again- I snapped my eyes open; I did not just think that. Beck. He's who I should be thinking about. My boyfriend, Beck. I loved him and hated Tori, that was right. Well, maybe hate was a strong word, I greatly disliked her. Right? Did I even dislike her anymore?

"Fuck!" I muttered, punching my pillow in frustration. I didn't want to think about how I felt about Tori Vega. Not that I really knew how I felt about her in the first place. I'd always put up this front that showed that I hated her and everything thing about her, but I knew it wasn't true hatred, and I'm pretty sure the others had figured out just as much, but _this_? This was ridiculous! I pulled the punched pillow from under my head and placed it over my face, muffling the aggravated scream I let loose. _It was just a stage kiss._ I repeated to myself in my head. _Just a stage kiss._


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Chapter 6 so soon after posting chapter 5! Apparently being away from home gets my creative juices flowing, but I'm going back tomorrow, so don't be surprised if my updates aren't quite as frequent, although I do have a lot of idea for this.**

**Also, I've changed the summary, if you hadn't noticed. I didn't like the last one much.**

**Read, review if you want, and I hope you enjoy! xx**

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><p><strong>Tori's POV.<strong>

"_I kissed a girl and I liked it, the taste of her cherry chap stick"_

"Ug, Trina! Can you turn that off, please!" I called over the sound of the radio and my sister's obnoxious singing. "Trina!" When she didn't react, I reached forward myself to shut off the car stereo and stop the song that was usually one of my favourites, but right now it felt like it was mocking me.

"Aw!" Trina whined once she'd shut up long enough to realise there was nothing to sing along to anymore. "But I thought you loved Katy Perry!"

"I do. I- I just have a headache." I sighed.

It was true, I did have a headache after a restless night trying not to think about the only thing I _could _think about. That kiss haunted my mind every time I closed my eyes and the worst part was: I liked it. I kissed a girl and I liked it… and that girl was Jade West. I knew all along that my feelings for Jade were different to that of the others in our little group, I was always so determined to be accepted by her and liked by her no matter what she said or what she did to me. I thought it was just because I didn't want anyone to hate me and that she was friends with all of my friends, so why couldn't we get along? I never quite knew why I needed her friendship so bad, but now I realise that it wasn't friendship I wanted. That kiss, it was like the final piece of a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle falling into place and the reason why I needed Jade's approval made sense: I had a crush on Jade West.

I came to that conclusion at 4 in the morning, hours and hours after the kiss had taken place. I lay on my bed, staring up at the ceiling littered with tons of glow in the dark stars, kind of like my locker at school, replaying the kiss in my mind and after filtering through so many other implausible reasons as to why my stomach felt like it would explode with butterflies when her lips met mine, that was the only one that made any logical sense.

"Tori!" Trina's voice yelled, snapping me back to reality. I turned to see my sister had parked the car and was already out of the door, looking back at me with an annoyed expression. "We're here. So are you going to come to school or hang around in the car all day? Because I'd happily lock you in here, if you want, but I'm taking the keys."

"I'm coming." I said, slipping out of the passenger side door and slamming the thing too. Now Trina seemed satisfied and she almost skipped off towards the school while chattering on about how she'd managed to convince Beck to stage kiss her twice last night 'In practice for the play.' Poor guy. Part of me wanted to ask if we could swap partners, so I worked with him and Trina with Jade, just so I could forget these feelings I'd gained since last night, but I knew Sikowitz wouldn't let us. Not to mention, a huge, newly discovered, part of me wanted to continue with the project just as an excuse to kiss Jade again. It was a terrible thought, using school work as an excuse for my own selfish pleasure, but I couldn't help it.

"Ah! So you are alive!" a voice said, breaking into my train of thought that had once again led back to the kiss. I jumped in surprise and turned to find Beck leaning against a locker, smirking slightly at my reaction. I didn't even remember walking to my locker, but, alas, I was currently trying to jam my history book into the small, metal compartment, with no luck.

"Huh?"

"Well, Jade obviously didn't kill you last night." He smiled, running a hand though his hair as always. "But, you do look like the living dead. Everything okay?"

"Thanks." I replied sarcastically, finally succeeding in getting the book back into its place. "And I'm fine, just didn't sleep too well last night."

"Oh yeah, how come?"

Before I could reply, the reason behind my sleepless night came sauntering up to where Beck and I stood. She flashed me a smirk then cupped her boyfriend's cheek, pulling him down into a kiss that caught him off guard, but didn't stop his enthusiastic response. I cringed, suddenly hating the sight of seeing the couple kiss, even though I had seen it many times before. There was a small, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that I could only equate to jealousy, and I wished I didn't feel it. I turned back to my locker, making sure everything was where it should be, and then slammed it closed a little harder than I normally would have.

"Well, good morning to you too." Beck grinned down at his girlfriend after they broke apart at the sound of the mental clanging shut.

"Morning, babe." Jade smiled at him before looking back to me. "You look like shit, Vega."

"Thanks." I rolled my eyes. I didn't want to deal with this right now. As much as I'd been able to figure out last night, there was still so much I was confused about. Like, what was I going to do about it? It was obvious that Jade didn't like me _that _way, or at all, really, so there was no chance of that ever happening. I could only hope that once this play thing was over, these thoughts and feelings would be over with too. 'Till then, I'd just have to cope with whatever this was I was feeling, even if it made me want to vomit at the sight of them together.

"We better get to class." I muttered as the bell rang. I turned on my heel and almost ran in the direction of where my next class would be, trying to get as far away from the happy couple as I could.

Xxx

I'm not sure if it was just me, but I couldn't help but notice today that Jade was all over Beck. I mean _all _over: legs draped across his, arms around his neck, kissing him every chance she got… the whole scene was making it very difficult for me to keep my pizza down as I sat slowly chewing it during lunch. Cat sat beside Jade, giggling a story to Eli, her partner for this stage kissing thing, and the lovesick look he was giving her- that Cat was totally oblivious to- wasn't helping my situation. So I turn my attention to a grumpy looking Andre, who was still yet to figure out what to do about his lack of partner, and Robbie.

"How's your project going then, Robbie?" I asked.

He groaned loudly and Rex gave a shout of laughter that caught the attention of everyone at the table.

"I don't want to talk about it." Robbie muttered.

"I don't want to think about it." Rex shuddered. "Seeing girl pants here try to locking lips that geek, Sinjin, makes me want to throw up the burrito I just ate."

"Shut up!" Robbie whined, covering Rex's mouth with his hand while the rest of us laughed at his misfortune. I almost offered to swap partners with him, but thought better of it: I'd much rather suffer through whatever this was I was having to deal with that have to kiss Sinjin Van Cleef in front of a crowd of people. Besides, Jade would probably kill me if she got stuck with Robbie. Maybe I could convince Sinjin to swap; I knew how much he wanted to get a kiss from Jade.

"I still don't know what to do about my partner." Andre said, popping a tatter tot into his mouth before continuing. "Sikowitz says I have to get in touch with her, but she isn't even in this state anymore! And apparently I can't use a mannequin because it's not a human being."

He squashed his last remaining tatter tot with his hand in annoyance.

"Maybe you can get someone else in the school to do it" I suggested, almost choking as I tried to keep my eyes off Jade, who had taken the opportunity to pull Beck into another kiss. "I bet Sikowitz wouldn't even notice."

"I 'spose." Andre said. "But who?"

"How about Vega there?" Jade managed to take her mouth away from her boyfriends long enough to spit this out, staring and pointing at me as she spoke. "I bet she's more than willing to go around 'stage' kissing every one in this school."

"Oh yeah, sure, I'd just _love _that." I said acidly, throwing my half eaten pizza slice back into the little plastic tray. The tension at the table increased tenfold as Jade fixed me with a glare, although it felt more like she was staring straight through me, rather than at me. The already present ball of butterflies in my stomach turned into a tornado at the look and I was too afraid to say anymore in case they spilled out of my open mouth.

Jade slipped her legs from where they'd been resting against Beck's, grabbing his hand as she got to her feet. "Come on babe, I don't want to be around these people anymore." then stormed off without so much of a glance back at the table.

"What crawled up her ass and died!" Andre said, once Jade was out of ear shot.

Beck, who had managed to hang behind for a second, chuckled, then gave an apologetic look as he directed his next words to me. "Sorry about her. She's just cranky because she says she didn't get much sleep last night either."

I nodded and mumbled an "It's alright" while my tired mind clicked into action. Was Jade up half the night thinking about the same thing I'd been thinking about? Did she feel it too, the spark between us when we kissed? No, this was Jade. It was nothing but a stage kiss to her. Yet, for me, it was a sickening realisation to something I'd rather not know. I pushed my pizza away and lay my head on the table, muttering an excuse about being tired when Robbie asked what was wrong.

"Isn't Jade going to yours tonight to work on this play, Tori?" Cat suddenly piped up, looking at me curiously.

I groaned in response. Honestly, I'd kind of been looking forward to working more on the play tonight as we'd been doing so well so far, but if Jade was going to be like this the entire time, then I'd rather throw myself under a bus than have to deal with her and whatever issues I had to work out involving her.

"I'm sure it'll be okay." Cat grinned, sliding into the seat beside me, leaving a lost looking Eli to listen to Robbie instead. She patted my back and gave me a smile, leaning in close to whisper in my ear. "It may even go better than you think."

My head shot up at her words, and I looked at her wide eyed with confusion. Did Cat know? She couldn't have figured it out that fast, could she? I'd only just figured it out myself!

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked, turning one of Cat's infamous phrases back on her.

She just giggled and tapped my nose affectionately just as the bell went, signalling us to go to our next class.

Xxx

The rest of the day went by in a blur of sleep deprivation and nausea. Whenever I saw Jade she was clinging to Beck like a monkey would to a branch, and I absolutely hated the feeling I got at the sight. Cat kept giving me odd looks through out the day, smiling hugely at me when she caught my attention, occasionally glancing in the direction of a certain tattooed girl if she were near at the time. It was getting annoying, and by the time our final lesson, Sikowitz's, came around, I was refusing to look at either Jade or Cat, which worked out well when the lesson consisted of nothing but random drive by acting challenges that the acting teacher would call out.

But now I sat on the sofa in my living room, anxiously awaiting the arrival of Beck and Jade while Trina sat beside me, smothering her lips in a thick coat of 'blueberry blast' lip gloss.

"What!" She asked defensively when I raised an eyebrow at her. "I want Beck to have a nice taste in his mouth after having his lips wrapped around Jade all day!"

"Gross, Trine." I cringed, but didn't feel as sorry for Beck as I would've done before. It was a petty jealously, but there all the same, eating away at me along with those darn butterflies.

The doorbell rang and Trina waved at hand dismissively in it's direction, too busy staring at her reflection in her hand held mirror, leaving me to let the couple who had just arrived in.

"So, same as we did last night?" Beck asked, easing himself into a chair, letting Jade throw herself into his lap. "Me and Trina down here while you two work upstairs? Or would you rather be dragged off to Jade's place again?"

He chuckled at me and I gulped a little. "I'm- I'm fine with working here, if that's okay with you, Jade?"

"Whatever." The dark haired girl shrugged, giving her boyfriend a long kiss before shifting from his lap. "I'll see you in a bit, babe."

Beck saluted then moved around to sit next to Trina, who already had her lips puckered as if expecting him to kiss her right this second. I rolled my eyes at my sisters' idiocy, following Jade, who was already two steps ahead of me, up to my room, closing the door quietly behind me once we got there.

"So." I said awkwardly.

Jade dropped herself into my desk chair like before, pulling out our script ideas notebook from her bag. I swayed back and forth on the balls of my feet, waiting for Jade to say or do something before I stupidly blurted out that we should practice the kissing scene again, because that was all my head was telling me to do right now.

Now that it was just Jade and I alone, my room felt a lot smaller than usual, and no matter how far back I tried to stay from her, it was always too close. I didn't want her to find out about these silly little feelings I had, so if I stayed away, maybe they'd stay away too. It was easier said that done, and I almost jumped out of my skin when Jade suddenly span around to face me, her eyes focused on a spot just over my shoulder. I would've turned to look at whatever she had seen, but my feet felt rooted to the floor and I could barely move a muscle.

"There's not much to do." She said in a bored tone, examining her fingernails. "We've sorted out the script, Sikowitz hinted that we could get extra credit for little props and costumes and stuff, but there's not much we can sort out while we're trapped here." She drummed her fingers on my desk, frowning a little. "The only thing we can do really is practice some more."

All I could do was nod as my heart jumped to my throat, leaving me to almost choke on it. Jade raised a thin brow at my reaction, but seemed to brush it off, probably thinking it was the same nerves I'd suffered the previous night. I wasn't sure what I felt. Nerves, yes. Maybe a little excitement. I stepped forward into the middle of the room, thinking about all the possible outcomes when we got to the kiss. Would I let my nerves get the better of me and chicken out again, or would I get carried away? God, I hope I didn't get carried away, Jade would kill me if she found out my feelings. Why did I have to feel this way? Why!

"Vega!"

Jade's snappy tone brought me back to the present. She was stood right in front of me, arms folded over her chest, a foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

"I said, are you ready to start?"

"Uh." I scrabbled to grab the piece of paper she'd trust at me, containing our lines. "Sure, ready when you are!"

She groaned, rolling her eyes, before stepping easily into character.

We practiced the scene through perfectly, I was almost jealous of Jades flawless performance. The closer we got to the ending, the more excited and nervous butterflies invaded my stomach and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do it or not, but if I chickened out again, Jade would probably find a very inventive way to hurt me. I couldn't take my eyes off her soft, pale lips as she spoke her final lines and found myself taking a step forward before she had, wanting to hold her hands and do this now, but she held up a hand to stop me, giving me an almost angry look of confusion.

"Vega, what are you doing?" She growled.

"I uh… I-" What was I supposed to say? 'Jade, I just really want to kiss you'? I don't think that would go down to well.

"_My _character is meant to step forward and initiate this, not yours." She glared at me and I looked away, not wanting her to see the blush covering my cheeks. Way to make yourself totally obvious, Tori.

"Yeah, sorry. I- I just wanted to get this over with." I said in a quiet voice, rubbing my arm awkwardly.

"Yeah, well you've ruined it now." She rolled her eyes again and grabbed her bag that she'd dumped on my floor as she checked her phone. "Don't screw up next time."

"Wait, where are you going?" I almost rushed forward to stop her leaving my room, cutting in front of Jade as she reached out to grab my door handle. Was that too desperate? That was too desperate, wasn't it? I need to work of my subtlety.

"Home." She said simply, pushing past me to get out. "Dad said I've got to be back early, so I'm off."

She stormed down the stairs, said her goodbyes to Trina and a confused looking Beck and left without another word. Beck turned to me with a questioning look.

"What was that about?" He asked.

I shrugged. "She just said she had to go home."

We heard Jade's car roar to life then speed away from my house, leaving us all to stare at the door in silence before turning back to each other, Beck's eyebrows creased in confusion.

"Well, there goes my ride home."

Xxx

Trina ended up taking Beck back to his place not long after Jade upped and left. I spent another restless night, tossing and turning in my bed, trying to figure out what happened to make her disappear so fast. Did I scare her off? Was I being too obvious about these silly little feelings I'd gained for her? I didn't even know what I truly felt; maybe I was just over reacting to the kiss, reading too much into something that was only for a play, all pretend, nothing more. But I felt _something _there, and I'm sure Jade did too; by the way she reacted afterwards.

I didn't know what to think anymore, this was all happening too fast. Who knew that a little stage kiss from the girl who hated me who make me feel this way? It was nothing like when I had kissed Beck to annoy Jade that day at Hollywood Arts, it wasn't even anything like when I had kissed any of my boyfriends, just thinking back to it made my legs turn to jelly, my insides squirm and my heart pound with emotions I just couldn't explain. I hated it and loved it, needed it and wanted to push it away at the same time. The only thing I knew for sure was whatever these feelings resulted in, it wouldn't be good.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I realised that I've been pretty terrible and haven't thanked anyone for the reviews, favourites and alerts this story has been getting. They mean a lot, and I do really appreciate them, so thank you so much to all of you!**

**Enjoy the chapter!**

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><p><strong>Jade's POV<strong>

_I hate Tori Vega_. I thought as I jumped into my car, determined to get as far away from aforementioned girl's house as humanly possible._ I hate her. I hate being around her, I hate the way everyone thought she was so perfect and I hate the way she got all the good roles over me._ I stomped my foot on the gas pedal and rushed out of the Vega's driveway, a small part of my mind remembering I had to take Beck back home. Oh well, he'll find another way. The rest of my mind was consumed with thoughts of the half-Latina girl I'd just left behind, and I hated that. _I hate the way she just walked in and took over like she owned the place. I hate how… how she would help me out when I needed it, no matter how horrible I'd been to her in the past and how she'd just brush off my attempts at sabotage like it was nothing. I hate the way her eyes would light up when she was really happy about something and how she looked so fantastic no matter the amount of make up she applied. I hate the way she made me notice these little things about her, and I especially hate the way she was making me feel right now, so confused, so scared and so…so…_

I had to jam my foot on the brake to stop myself from crashing into the car in front. I was so lost in my own thoughts that I hadn't even noticed that I'd driven myself pretty much all the way home, and was now only a block away from my house. I tried to rid myself of anything that involved Tori Vega as I swung my car into its parking spot then pushed myself out, slowly making my way to the front door that I slammed loudly behind me as I entered.

"Will you keep the noise down!" My father barked, glancing up from the mountain of paper work that sat before him, looking more than stressed. "Oh, it's you, Jade. I thought you said you wouldn't be home 'til late tonight."

"Changed my mind." I said simply. "I'm going to my room now."

I left my father to do whatever he was doing, something boring to do with work that I couldn't care less about, no doubt, and made my way through the house towards my bedroom, hoping for no more interruptions on the way. Unfortunately, my irritant of a little sister, Isabella, decided to take this moment to come out of her own room, eyes so glued to her PearPhone that if I hadn't of held my hand up to stop her, we would've collided in the middle of the corridor.

"Watch where you're walking, pest." I spat.

"Alright, snappy!" She huffed, still focused on whatever she was typing to one of her annoying little friends. "What's got your knickers in a knot!"

"None of your business!" I growled, taking a step closer to the younger girl, bending down slightly to look at her menacingly. "And if you don't get out of my way, _now, _then it'll be your knickers in a knot!"

Isabella raised an eyebrow at me in challenge, but stepped aside anyway, continuing her walk to the front room, probably to lounge about in front of some horrible reality tv show for the rest of the night. I was thankful because I really couldn't be bothered to deal with her right now, there was too much on my mind already without having her there too. If only I could put Isabella and Vega in a bag, shake them up and throw them in a river, then all of my problems would be solved.

I finally made it to my room and, with a sigh, threw my bag in one direction while simultaneously falling backwards onto my bed, my head buzzing with so many thoughts and feelings, stuff I didn't want to think about, stuff involving a certain brown eyed brunette. Everything about today was a blur. At school, I had thrown myself all over Beck, trying to concentrate on him and keep things the way they had always been, but something felt off. His arms felt wrong around me, his lips felt strange and rough every time we kissed. As much as I hated to admit it to myself, things between Beck and I had been a bit stale for a while, we'd been together for over 2 years now and things were becoming routine, done because that's what we were used to. He was a great guy, and I did love him, but… something was wrong. I knew it was there, but this was the first time I'd really felt it, the first time I realised that something had completely changed.

And now, now all I could think about was Tori. No matter what I did she crept into my mind, invading my thoughts, taking over just like she had done at school. Like this morning, when I was wondering what to have for breakfast, my mind wandered over to her, wondering what _she'd _be having for breakfast, debating whether or not she was still at home at that point, or if she'd already had breakfast and had been dragged to school by her own irritant of a sister. It was a stupid thought and I ended up skipping breakfast, I didn't feel like eating.

But it was little things like that, little things I'd never think about before, that kept racing to the forefront of my brain and remained there, no matter how hard I tried to push them away. Right now, all I could think of was her reaction to me leaving so suddenly. She'd tried to stop me, almost sounded desperate to make me stay, but I'd just pushed her off and walked away, too afraid to be around her too long because I didn't want to recognise these feelings for what they truly were.

And there was still the problem of kissing her; I wasn't sure what I'd do if our lips made contact again. I couldn't get away with not doing it because of this stupid project, but I don't think I could without reacting in a way I didn't want to react.

I huffed and got up from my bed, sticking a movie into the dvd player, needing a distraction from everything. I spent the entire night watching movie after movie until I finally nodded off, her face and sweet voice worming its way in and out of my dreams, making me wish I had some sort of control over them just so I didn't have to think about the youngest Vega, because I hated it.

Xxx

We were stuck in the Black Box theatre searching through bins of costumes and props for something to use for this extra credit Sikowitz kept bleating on about. I was at one end, digging through things that had been used for the last play we'd held in here, while Vega was all the way across the room, as far as I could get away from her, that was until she came bounding over to me with a pair of thick, black spectacles perched on her nose and a bag full of clothes. She stopped right beside me, a stupid grin plastered across her face.

"What do you think of these?" She asked, taking off the glasses to inspect them before placing them back on her face. "Do they suit me?" She laughed.

"They make you look like Robbie." I said in a bored tone.

She just shrugged and began rummaging through the plastic bag she was holding until she pulled out a small, blue and white cheerleaders outfit and held it up against me. I raised an eyebrow at her and she put the costume down, turning it around for me to get a better look at.

"I'm not dressing up to take part in one of your sick fantasies, Vega." I spat with a smirk, my mind wandering for a second, imagining what Tori would look like in that outfit- no! No, that's not what I thought; I'd sooner ram that outfit down her throat than see her wearing it.

I gulped and barely noticed her blush, spluttering out something that sounded like 'It's for the play.'

"I don't care what it's for; I wouldn't wear it if it was the last piece of clothing on Earth. Put it back before I choke you with it."

Tori's eyes widened then she scurried off to the clothing bin she'd been looking through and I was following her before I knew it, sneaking up behind the smaller girl and peeking over her shoulder to look at the many different outfits shoved into the plastic container in front of her.

"I hate all of them." I hissed in her ear, making the Vega girl jump out of her skin and drop the small, pink shirt she was holding. I laughed and took a step back, not wanting to be too close to her for too long. "Seriously, Vega. Do you really think I'd be caught dead in any of that?"

"Is there anything you do like, Jade?" She asked, ignoring my last question and turning to face me.

I shrugged. "Scissors, misery, pain, death." I listed, mockingly, finding a pair of scissors on the table and spinning them around my finger. "All four of them together." I pointed the blades towards Vega, smirking as a nervous expression crossed her face, her eyes never leaving the object in my hand. "You could help me out, if you want."

I tried not to think about how suggestive I'd made that sentence, watching as Tori gulped then snatched the scissors from my hand in a swift move that actually surprised me. She threw them back onto the table, glaring at me the whole time.

"Didn't your mommy ever tell you not to play with scissors?" I sneered in the accent I reserved only to mock Tori Vega. And three, two, one…

"I don't talk like that!" She needed to work on her come backs.

I couldn't help but notice how she sounded a little exhausted as she spoke and threw her arms into the air only for them to fall limply at her sides again. She hadn't been sleeping well, I remember Beck mentioning it yesterday when I told him I hadn't slept well either. I wondered what was going on in her head to make the oh-so-perfect Miss Vega restless and worried. Maybe she was just as nervous about this kissing business as she seemed to be and my apprehensions about it probably weren't helping the situation. I didn't get it, she'd happily kissed Beck right in front in just her first week at Hollywood Arts, it was all acting, nothing more.

_Nothing _more I repeated to myself, glancing around the room to find that only Vega and I remained. I turned back to see she'd noticed the same thing, her eyes set on the front of the theatre as she walked towards it, pushed those dorky glasses back on to her face and picked up a large, heavy book from the prop bin, which she hugged close to her chest. The look was actually kind of cute on her- no, no it wasn't.

"I was thinking pigtails." She said, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. My brows furrowed as I tried to remember what she was talking about… oh, right, the play.

"Whatever." I said, hoping to sound uninterested when I was really picturing Vega in pigtails high on her head and not chuckle at the image. I walked forward to stand in front of her. "So, as there's no one around, wanna practice the scene?"

She nodded slowly, her tongue poking out to lick her lips and I tried not to stare as it did so. Oh God, this was going to be harder than I thought. After finding some glittery sequinned handbag and a couple of other accessories that I'd rather puke on than wear again, Vega and I began to work through our play and I had to admit I was pretty impressed with the way the whole thing was going, until it got to that point again. Yesterday I'd used Tori's little mess up as an excuse to not have to kiss her, but I knew she wouldn't make the same mistake twice and as she said her final line, I couldn't think of a way of getting out of it again.

"I want more than that." I said in a whisper, taking my step forward and picking up Vega's hands in my own. I swallowed the lump that had worked its way into my throat and could hardly get out my last words as I looked down into her chocolate brown eyes. "I love you, T-Mary."

She hadn't noticed my slip up. I was about to say her name, _Vega's _name. It was only because I was looking at her and she doesn't really look like a Mary so- fuck, I was so flustered! That never happened to me. Ever. I felt her squeeze my hands a little and I was reminded that we hadn't quite finished yet; there was still the one part I now dreaded, but couldn't avoid. My breath caught in my throat and I held it, squeezing my eyes shut and closing the distance between us as quickly as I could, while still trying to stay in character. Our lips met, a little clumsy at first, but I soon felt Vega kissing me back quicker than she had the first time we'd done this; obviously her confidence had grown in the short space of time. She was wearing the same lip gloss again, that cherry flavour, and I was tempted to ask if she had any other, but I was so lost in the sweetness and softness of her mouth that any jab I'd usually take at her was washed away in an instant. Without thinking, I pushed forward, a hand slipping from hers to rest on her waist, pulling the shorter girl closer, feeling no resistance to my actions, and I tried not to smile at this.

I don't know how long we stayed like that, or how long we would've if we hadn't been interrupted by the sound of the high pitched squeal I knew all too well. I instantly pushed Vega away from me, she only just caught herself to stop her fall, and, sure enough, the red velvet blur that came rushing towards me showed it was indeed Cat who had walked in on our little… moment.

"That was amazing!" She gushed, jumping up and down on the balls of her feet and clapping her hands together excitedly. "It was such a good stage kiss, it almost looked real!"

"Yeah, well, that's just my amazing acting skills." I said, trying to brush off what had just happened. "Vega needs some work, though." I added, refusing to look at the girl as she made a noise somewhere between offended and strangled.

Cat cocked an eyebrow as she looked between the two of us, and I could see something beneath the confusion that masked her face. What it was, I don't know, but it couldn't be good. "It's lunch time!" She said eventually, her eyes resting on Tori who I knew without looking was visibly just as flustered as I felt. "Are you guys coming?"

"Sure." I heard Tori squeak, then cough to get her voice back to normal. "I'll- I'll be out in a second."

"I'm coming." I stated, reverting back to the bored tone that was standard while I was around others. I didn't even glance back at Cat or Vega as I left the room, quite content in attempting to block anything that had just happened from my mind forever.

Xxx

I got home from school really early that day, and with my parents still at work and Isabella out at the mall with friends, I had the place to myself. Beck had asked if I'd wanted to go to his, or if he could come round mine, but I just didn't feel like having any company right now, even that of my own boyfriend. He'd looked disappointed when I said no, but luckily Andre walked past at that very moment and asked Beck if he'd like to help out with a new song he was working on. He glanced at me first, probably hoping that I'd change my mind, and then nodded, accepting Andre's offer a little reluctantly. I didn't mean to push the guy out, but right now I felt like I needed some time by myself, to figure out everything that needed to be figured out, hopefully get to the bottom of these feelings I had and come out with a satisfying conclusion that wasn't what I feared it would be.

I sat myself on the couch, apple in one hand, remote in the other as I flicked through all of the channels on the tv, skipping past all the trashing programs that idiots called entertainment these days, pausing on one for a second to watch as a big-chested, make up plastered, blond woman ate some huge insect and almost threw it up over the presenter guy. I was about to switch the channel over when I felt my phone buzzing in my pocket. I fumbled around for the pear shaped cell, excepting to find Beck texting to ask if it was alright for him to come over, but was surprised to see Cat's name flashing up on the screen.

"What?" I asked as I answer; I can't remember the last time I used 'hello' as a greeting at the start of a phone call.

"Hi Jade!" Cat's happy voice squealed loudly through the receiver, possibly damaging my ear drum.

"What?" I repeated, in no mood to listen to yet another of the red haired girls' stories about her insane brother.

"I just wanted to see how you were." She said in a sad tone. I knew I'd upset her with my snappy voice and an upset Cat was never a good Cat, so I'd have to humour her so this call didn't end in tears.

"I'm fine, Cat." I sighed, running a hand through my hair. If that was all she wanted to know, maybe she'd hang up now, right? Wrong.

"Are you sure? It looked like something was wrong at school today."

"Yeah, I have to stage kiss Vega, that's very wrong."

"You didn't seem to mind earlier."

That got me interested. I sat up a little straighter on the couch and shut the tv off just as that blond woman from before got a bucket full of slime dumped on her head. Eyebrows raised in a mixture of shock and annoyance, I had to bite my tongue to stop myself from biting Cat's head off.

"And what do you mean by that?" I asked through gritted teeth. What did Cat know? How much of that kiss had she seen before she decided to interrupt us?

"Nothing." She drew the word out and I could almost hear the smirk in her voice. That girl had been hanging around with me for far too long. "Just that you seemed to like kissing Tori when you were in the Black Box theatre."

"That was my character, Cat." I growled at her, trying to convince myself as much as the girl on the other end of the phone. "My character is supposed to want to kiss her character. This has nothing to do with me and Vega."

"Uh huh." She sounded totally unconvinced. I was about to say more when she spoke over the top of me, going back to her usual high, giggling voice. "Oh, I have to go. I'll see you at school, Jade!"

"Bye." I grunted, hanging up and throwing the PearPhone next to me on the sofa, completely frustrated by how that conversation had gone. Cat had been my friend for the longest at Hollywood Arts, and I suppose she knew quite a lot about me, a little more than others did anyway, and it was almost like she'd picked up this sixth sense when it came to knowing how I feel. It was annoying, but I could trust her not to say to anyone about anything she thought she'd figured out, that was the one tiny upside to the situation.

Now I realised that this was something I couldn't deny anymore, and as much as I hated to admit it, there was something going on with my feelings for Tori. Something I didn't want to acknowledge or believe was real, but it was definitely there, not matter how hard I tried to get rid of it. I'd gotten carried away in the Black Box earlier, lost control of what I was doing for that brief moment, and if Cat hadn't appeared, then… I don't know what would've happened. It only made matters worse that Vega hadn't done anything to stop me; she'd pretty much allowed me to pull her body closer to mine and didn't protest when the kiss lasted longer than it should have. I didn't know what was going on anymore and could only wish that once this idiot project was finished with everything would be back to normal.

I was distracted from my thoughts when I felt my phone buzz again and reached across the sofa to find what I had expected before: a text from Beck saying he'd finished working with Andre and asking if I wanted to come round his for a bit. I sighed, knowing I should probably spend this time sorting out the mixed up thoughts in my head, but my automatic response was to type a positive reply to Beck's message saying I'd be there in ten minutes, then lugged myself off the sofa and out of the door, struggling to fix my mind on my boyfriend instead of the girl now haunting my every thought and feeling.


	8. Chapter 8

**Tori's POV**

I was peacefully dozing on the couch in front of the tv, trying not to think over the weird week I was having, the pale, gothic girl who was the cause of my weird week or the kiss we'd shared earlier at school- which had stuck itself in a continuous loop in my head for me to see whenever I closed my eyes- when I was rudely awoken by the sound of the doorbell ringing. I grunted, pushing myself off the cushions and slumped over to the door, really not in the mood to see anyone, especially not the squealing little red head who tackled me in a hug as soon as I'd opened the door to her.

"Hi Tori!" She giggled as I prised her off me.

"Hey Cat." I said, watching as the smaller girl jumped into the seat I'd previously occupied, beaming a bright smile from ear to ear, positively bouncing up and down with excitement about something or other. I stood up behind to her, one hand on my hip, the other resting against the back of the couch. "How come you're here? Aren't you meant to be practicing you scene with Eli?"

"Oh." She paused in her fidgeting, her eyebrows creased. "Oh yeah! I forgot!" She fell back against the cushions, laughing at her mistake and I shook my head, but couldn't help the smile that twitched onto my lips as I sat down beside her; the girl was just a contagious ball of happiness.

"So, how come you're here?" I repeated. It's not that I didn't want to see her; I just hadn't expected her to arrive. Although, my friends did have a habit of inviting themselves over whenever they felt like it.

Cat began bouncing again and she bit the side of her cheek in what looked like an attempt to stop herself from blurting out the reason she was at my house. My eyebrows were raised even higher as I watched, it looked like she was unable to contain herself and the words came tumbling out of her mouth before she could stop them.

"Do you like kissing Jade?"

I choked. "W-What!"

"Do you like kissing Jade?" Cat repeated, grinning. It looked like she already knew the answer to her question,

"I, uh-" I gulped. I was still having trouble admitting it to myself, but saying out loud to Cat… "It's my character."

"That's what Jade said!" The little red head giggled again.

"Well, yeah, that's because- wait! You asked Jade if she likes kissing me!" I stammered, staring wide-eyed at the girl next to me who nodded gleefully, the Cheshire cat grin back in place. "Well, what did she say!"

"I told you, she said it was just your characters."

I blinked. "Oh, yeah…"

We sat in silence for a few moments, me staring absently at the tv screen, not really paying attention to the show that was playing, while Cat sat beside me, once again jigging up and down in place, quietly laughing to herself. She looked like she was about to explode.

"You do!" Cat burst out suddenly in a sing song voice, making me jump a little.

I rolled my eyes, just managing to suppress a groan at her words as I sank back into the chair, throwing my arms over my stomach. Cat was giggling again, and she fell back as well to rest her head on my shoulder.

"Look, Cat." I sighed, knowing I couldn't lie to the girl. "You can't tell Jade, or _anyone_, okay?"

She nodded against me, but I could say no more. Admitting out loud that I may actually _like _kissing Jade was totally different to admitting it in my head. For a start, in my head, no one else could hear it, no one else could know and it was safe there, it could be tucked to one side and forgotten about, if I tried hard enough. But aloud, it was out in the open for anyone to find out, including Jade herself, and I didn't want that, at all. Cat looked up at me expectantly and I huffed, pursing my lips in defiance, but the smaller girls beaming grin only got bigger, if it were possible.

"Tooooriiiiiii" She sang, prodding my side with her index finger, making me flinch away from her, an involuntary, automatic reaction; she'd found a tickle spot without even trying, but I wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of laughing at the touch.

"Okay! Okay!" I called in defeat when she wouldn't stop with the prodding. "Alright, fine." I glanced around the room quickly to check for anyone else who may suddenly appear, my eyes lingering for a second on the patio doors to make sure Robbie or Sinjin weren't hiding behind the plants again; those two were creepy. Cat leaned in closed as I dropped my voice to a whisper, the words rushing out of my mouth just to get them over with. "Okay, so I may like kissing Jade, but it doesn't mean anything, it's just the play and nothing more."

Cat blinked a little as she deciphered what I'd said and I swallowed, already regretting saying anything, even before the red head smirked up at me again.

"So you do like kissing Jade!" She teased in a loud squeal. I flapped my arms and made a 'shh-ing' sound, causing Cat to throw a hand over her mouth. "Sorry."

"It's okay." I ran a hand through my hair. "But, yeah. I do. Sorta. I don't know." I sighed yet again.

Cat wore a look that was somewhere between confusion and the usual face she pulled while she was thinking. I watched her closely, wondering what was going on in her mind, half expecting her to come out with a comment about poodles, or rainbows, or something else completely unrelated to the previous topic. Actually, I would have welcomed any strange comment the girl would make, but, instead, she gasped loudly, clapping her hands together in delight.

"I know!" She yelped, her eyes bright with excitement. "Why don't we test it!"

"Test what?" My brows knitted together in bewilderment.

"This!" Without warning, Cat grabbed my chin and pressed her lips to mine, catching me entirely of guard.

It took a second for my stunned brain to kick back into action and I managed to shove her away from me, subconsciously shuffling away a little. "CAT!"

"What?" She shrugged nonchalantly, as if nothing had happened.

"You- I mean- You can't just do that!" I spluttered.

"But, it was the test" She said innocently, her bottom lip thrust out in a pout. "I tested Robbie before too, when he liked Trina, but that didn't go so well."

"Test!"

"Yeah!" Cat bounded in her seat again; it always threw me off whenever she'd change her mood so suddenly like that. "See! You didn't want to kiss me!"

"Yeah." I said slowly, wiping my mouth to get rid of the taste of Cat's strawberry lip gloss. "You did just suddenly attack me!"

"But, you do want to kiss Jade!" She continued as if I hadn't said anything.

"Can we not talk about it?" I whined. "Can't we just put a movie on or something?"

Cat happily agreed, getting up from the couch to choose a movie from the stack of DVDs that were piled up beside my tv and I breathed out a sigh of relief. If Cat was going to remain at my house for the rest of the evening, and it didn't seem like she was going anytime soon, then at least I could distract her with fun films rather than have her question me about things I really didn't want to answer. But what she had said lingered in my mind; she was right, warning or not, I didn't want to kiss Cat. I didn't feel the same butterflies I'd felt when it was Jades lips upon mine, or her hand on my waist. I hadn't missed that gesture earlier, no matter how brief the contact was. No, it wasn't the same; even Cat could see that and I really hoped she was the only one.

Xxx

Friday, the day of our performance, crawled up far too fast for my liking. Jade and I had managed a couple more practice runs, changing and adapting our script until we felt it was good enough. I'd made excuses each time to avoid the kiss, from faking a coughing fit to 'accidentally' dropping my heavy prop book on Jade's foot- thank God she wears those boots, otherwise I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be breathing right now, and Jade didn't seem to mind that we didn't practice it. We'd even sorted out all of our little costume pieces, but now the big day had arrived, I felt so very unprepared.

We sat in class, me in my usual seat at the front, Jade as far back as she could get, watching as the other acts performed their scenes- cringing along with everyone else at Robbie and Sinjin's- waiting anxiously for our turn. Andre had managed to find someone at Hollywood Arts willing to help him out with his piece, and, considering the two of them had about half the time as the rest of us to work on their project, they'd done a really good job. The class applauded him and Jessica as they left the stage, Sikowitz nodding his approval at Andre as he passed by before the crazy teacher leapt onto the stage with his clipboard in hand.

"Thank you Andre and-" he paused, his face scrunched up as he tried to remember the girls name. "Uh, and _you… _for that wonderful performance." Jessica smiled and excused herself to go back to the class she was missing. Sikowitz looked down at his clipboard, his small grin faltering a bit at the next two names on the list. "So, our next performers will be: Tori and Jade!"

I gulped , glancing at Jade as she strolled to the stage confidently, dressed up in the few accessories she'd deemed worthy to wear, and that she 'didn't want to run through a shredder', so she said. I, on the other hand, stumbled unsurely out of my chair, adjusting the high pigtails I'd been tying up during class and scooping up my book before heading to the front. It was only when Jade had groaned loudly and stomped away for a second did I remember I was supposed to bring a chair with me too, but, honestly, the large book was enough to carry by itself. She slammed the plastic seat next to me, which I quickly sat down in, shoving my glasses onto my face in the process, and then we took our position on opposite sides of the stage. I saw Jade take a deep breath before I disappeared behind my book, awaiting our scene to start.

"Mary?" Jade's voice was small and quiet, a little higher in pitch to her usual voice with a slight accent. "Mary? We need to talk."

I continued to pretend to study the book, my character was supposed to ignore hers at first.

"Mary, please!" She sounded desperate now and a couple of soft footsteps told me Jade was making her way towards me; I sneaked a peek up through my eyelashes to confirm this.

"You can't just ignore me. Please?" She was stood right in front of me and if this were actually Jade, she would have ripped the book right out of my hands and tossed it across the room. But this was 'Hannah', and it still amazed me that Jade had picked a character for herself that was completely different to her own personality.

"I can try." I said, my voice also a little higher, but a little bitter too.

"Don't! Please?" She placed a hand on my book and my eyes shoot up to meet hers, a scowl to rival the one she usually wore on my face, which I had to fight to keep in place when I noticed the look she was giving me: sad, sincere, very believable. "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not." 'Mary' spat, pulling the book from Hannah's grasp. "If you were sorry, then you wouldn't do all the stuff you do to me."

"You know I don't mean it!" She cried.

"Then why do you do it!" I sprang up from my seat and threw the book to the ground, careful to avoid hitting Jades feet this time. She flinched at the action. "You pushed me in the swimming pool today, fully clothed! And you still expect me to be your friend!"

"I- I- that wasn't my idea!" She stammered. "It was everyone else! They made me do it!"

"That's not the point!" I said in an exasperated tone, throwing my arms in the air for emphasis. "We've been friends for years and yet you pick them over me! You do everything they say! You bully people just to be popular, it's stupid!"

I try to turn away, but Hannah took a step forward and placed her hand on my arm, which Mary quickly shook off; I could feel the Goosebumps erupt on my skin from her touch. I looked up to see a small amount of tears welling up in her eyes, as her character was supposed to be on the verge of crying by this point, Jade saying it was because she was a stupid teenage girl who couldn't handle her emotions.

"Mary, please, we're best friends-"

"You don't even like me!" I yelled. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of students in the front row flinch and felt slightly proud that I had caused that kind of reaction.

"That's not true!" Hannah croaked back, a tear rolling down her cheek. Jade was a brilliant actress, I couldn't deny that. "You know that's not true! I do like you! I always have!"

"Then why do you act like you hate me around everyone else? Why do you push me around and treat me like dirt, then come crying to me when something goes wrong?"

"Please." Hannah said softly, taking a step closer and I only just remembered to take a step back; as much as I was lost in the performance and my character, my mind kept slipping back to being me, forcefully reminding me that I had to kiss the tattooed girl, in front of a class full of people, in just a matter of moments. I took a deep breath in through my nose but it did nothing to stop the storm of butterflies that had taken residence in the pit of my stomach from attacking my insides. "Mary, I-"

"No, Hannah! I can't do this anymore! I'm sick of being your dirty little secret. If you really want to be friends, then prove it." My voice broke slightly as I spoke, my character also meant to be close to tears now. Jade had taken yet another small step forward and I stood my ground, my breath hitched in my throat, knowing exactly what was coming, making me wish the time limit on our scenes had been longer.

"It's not that I don't want to be your friend." Hannah said quietly, looking me in the eye as she spoke. My stomach flip flopped with anticipation. _This is it._ "It's- I just… I love you, Mary."

Jade moved slowly forward, taking my hands in her own like we'd practiced so many times before and it took all I had not to break character and make a run for it out of the classroom. _Come on, Tori, it's just a stage kiss. _I chanted in my head,_ you've done this before. _

It seemed to take forever for Jade to fully close the distance between us, but when our lips made contact, everything else was driven from my mind; the stage, the characters, the class. It was just me and Jade stood here, hand in hand, slowly kissing, our lips hardly moving as they tentatively brushed over each other, butterflies bursting inside of me and I was completely lost in the moment until a coughing noise was made and the sound of awkward clapping reached our ears, pulling me back to reality and quickly away from Jade, who almost jumped away from me like I had shocked her. The class were looking up at us on the stage, unsurely applauding our performance which I knew, just by the look on their faces, had lasted a lot longer than it should have, or, more like, the kiss at the end had lasted a lot longer than it should have. I turned to Jade, who was staring at me with a totally blank expression, although her eyes conveyed something else, but before I had a chance to figure out what it was, Jade had turned on her heel and stormed straight out of the door without a word. I, however, was rooted to the spot, my heart pounding in my chest , a mixture of panic and dread consumed me as I tried to process what had just happened, only broken out of my transfix by a male voice.

"Jade?" Beck was half way out of his seat, a look of confusion etched on his face, ready to chase after his girlfriend, if only Sikowitz, who was sat next to him, hadn't placed a hand on his shoulder to stop the boy from leaving.

"Beck, stay." He said in the same manner you would to the cute family dog. "You're up next, so I need you in my class rather than running after your girlfriend."

"But-"

"Ah, no buts!" The acting teacher jumped up from his seat, clapping his hands together happily as he turned to face me. "That was a, uh, very good performance, Tori, very good. Now, if you would be so kind as to go and fetch your acting partner from wherever she has run off too…"

"I-wha?" I spluttered as Sikowitz ran up behind me, shoving me in the direction of the door. I glanced around the class to see each member staring up at me, picking out my friends who all seemed to be reacting the most to this: Beck, Andre and Robbie looking utterly perplexed, Trina had her mouth hanging open in shock and Cat, tucked away at the back of the class, caught my eye and flashed me a huge, knowing smirk. "But, can't Beck-"

"I already said no!" Sikowitz cried, throwing open the door and pushing me out. "Now, go! Find Jade and bring her back here!"

With that the door was slammed in my face before I could say another word. I sighed; this left me with two options, either I sprint all the way back home, not coming back, so I could forget about today and didn't have to face what had just happened. Or I could go and confront my fear, the girl who had been the focus of all of my thoughts for this past week and the one who had ran away from me just moments ago. As tempting as the first option sounded, the only result I'd get from it would be a detention for skipping class and, unfortunately, I knew exactly where the object of the second option would be hiding. So it was there I headed uneasily, each step closer causing the tornado in my stomach to churn, making me feel sick with apprehension. I didn't know what to expect from Jade, her expression before she left was difficult to read, but whatever it was, surely it couldn't be good.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I hope everyone still reading this is liking it so far. Sorry for the waits, I always struggle a little when I'm writing.  
>Thank you so much for all the feedback, alerts and favourites. If you have anything else to say on the story, don't hesitate to hit the review button =)<strong>


	9. Chapter 9

**Tori's POV**

Unfortunately for me, the janitors' closet wasn't that far from Sikowitz's classroom and, even more unfortunate for me, I was right in my assumption that Jade West had tried to hide herself away in said closet. As I approached, I kept myself concealed behind the wood, standing on my tiptoes to peer through the window, and, sure enough, there she was, sat on the floor with a large pair of scissors in one hand and a broom in the other, the bristles of which she was currently chopping to pieces.

I placed my hand on the door handle and hesitated; why was I even here? I could've just wandered around the school for a little while then gone back and told Sikowitz that I couldn't find Jade, I still could. I knew Jade wouldn't want to see me right now, or ever again, but curiosity was nagging at me. It wanted to know exactly why she had stormed out of the class instead of just brushing it off as part of the play, or even used what had happened to humiliate me in front of everyone, which was usually her style. There was something else too. Whatever happened back on the stage, I knew it wasn't just me who made it happen. Jade hadn't pushed me away or tried to stop me, she hadn't done so the time before that either, not until Cat came barging in. I'm not sure if it was just these new found feelings playing tricks on my mind, but it almostseemed like Jade _wanted _this… whatever it was.

"Jade?" Curiosity won. I entered the little room and the scissor-wielding girl rounded on me, whipping her arm around so that the blades of the object in her hand were dangerously close to my leg. Intentional or not, I wasn't sure.

"Fuck off, Vega." Jade said in a monotone then returned to massacring the broom.

Tempting, but-

"Jade." I sighed and, for some reason, sat down next to her on the floor. "Sikowitz told me to find you and get you back to class."

"Oh, so you're my minder now?" She spat, an eyebrow arched as she turned to face me again, the scissors now _very _near to the tip of my nose, making me go crossed eyed just to keep the metal instrument in my line vision.

I scooted back a little "Yes, of course, I'm now you're minder, Jade." I said sarcastically, but she acted as if she hadn't heard me. I huffed. "Sikowitz just sent me to get you back, that's all."

"I'm not going."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine, whatever, that's all I'm here to do. I tried and failed, and now that's done, I'll leave you to vandalise more of the schools property."

I wouldn't usually give up like that, but I couldn't be bothered to deal with Jade if she was in one for these moods. I stood up to leave, but there was the sound of something shifting behind me and a clatter as the wooden broom fell to the floor, telling me that Jade had also stood up. I felt the now all too familiar touch of her fingers closing over my wrist and my arm I was yanked so I span around in a circle to face the paler girl, our noses just millimetres apart. Jade fixed me with an intense glare; I gulped, my eyes closed automatically as I prepared myself for the pain that was bound to follow, but it didn't and, to my utter surprise, the next thing I felt were Jades lips crushed roughly to mine, causing me to take a couple of steps back to keep my balance.

It took my body all of two seconds to get over the shock and respond enthusiastically to her kiss, but my mind was still stunned, the wheels in my brain turning slowly as it tried to work out if this was real or not. Jades free hand found its way to my waist, the other gripping my wrist a little tighter, pulling our bodies closer and my free hand moved up, coming to a rest on Jade's shoulder. Her lips parted, the wetness of her tongue brushed hungrily over my bottom lip causing my breath to hitch and a tiny, squeak of a moan escape me before I could stop it. I opened my mouth a small amount and her tongue darted inside, exploring eagerly, meeting mine fiercely as the kiss deepened and my fingers shifting to tangle in her hair. I could hardly breathe, my heart was pounding rapidly in my chest, and then… there was nothing.

I opened my eyes just in time to see Jade bend down to grab her bag off the floor. I stood frozen, staring at her in confusion as she marched passed me, straight out the door, not even bothering to so much as glance in my direction. I took a couple of deep breaths, my rapid heartbeat slowing as I just stayed rooted to the spot, gawping in bewilderment over my shoulder at the now closed door. My finger traced over my lips; I could still feel Jades presence on them, and my brow furrowed… What just happened?

Xxx

**Jade's POV**

Oh _God_! What just happened? I _kissed _Tori Vega! Not just the stupid stage kissing we'd be practicing before, but a full on, tongue-shoved-down-her-throat assault! That wasn't supposed to happen! And to make matters worse, she kissed me back!

My head was spinning. She just _had_ to follow me out of the classroom and hunt me down to where I was wallowing in my own self pity and annoyance. I was meant to be pissed off when she turned up. I was meant to be angry. I was meant to yell at her, tell her to get out of my life and leave me alone forever, but no, _that _happened.

I stomped through the doors of Hollywood Arts out into the warm sunshine of parking lot, not stopping, not even when I heard Lane call my name, until I was at my car. I threw my bag into the passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel hard in my hands, resting my forehead against the hot leather and closed my eyes for a few moments. I don't know what had gotten into me lately. This project had twisted my mind, made me feel things I didn't want to feel and they all centred around perfect princess Tori Vega. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted the new air freshener in my car, a shade of purple, lilac, and all it did was remind me of Tori and her annoying habit of wearing something purple _all the time_. I grabbed the useless thing and tore it from the mirror; opening the window just enough so I could throw it out, wishing I could do the same to certain other purple things.

My eyes stung and I wiped at them furiously, _because tears were really going to help_. I shouldn't be reduced to tears anyway, not over something as irritating and insignificant as Tori Vega. No, I wouldn't cry for her. I wouldn't do anything for her. I needed to get away from here.

I fumbled with my car keys, taking three attempts to jam them into the ignition and three more to get the car started. I was about to slam my foot onto the gas pedal and hightail it out of here, when a streak of vibrate colour flashed passed the window and the next second, Cat hopped up next to me, pushing my bag onto the floor as she took her seat.

"Hi!" She said brightly.

"Out." I stated simply.

"But I just got here!" She pouted.

"Now."

"No."

My head whipped up. Did Cat just say no to me? Innocent little Cat Valentine just said no to _me._ I wasn't sure if I were more angry or impressed by this sudden defiance from the shorter girl, so I settled on fixing her with a glare, hoping to get whatever it is she wanted out of the way. "Spit it out then."

She sighed.

"Running away isn't going to help." Cat said quietly, looking up at me with her big brown eyes, a little darker than Tori's, a little wider too… wait, why was I comparing her eyes to Vegas!

I shook my head. "Don't know what you're talking about."

"Jade." Cat huffed. She looked frustrated, and determined. This side of Cat was rarely seen by others, most just brushing her off as the dizzy little red head that was always skipping around school with a smile plastered across her face. I hardly saw it either, but when I did, I knew she was serious.

"I'm not as stupid as everyone thinks." She muttered.

"Cat-" She held up a finger and I was silenced in an instant.

"I saw the two of you in the Black Box the other day. I saw how you reacted and how _she _reacted. And I can see that you and Beck aren't as close as you used to be-" I opened my mouth to speak, not wanting to hear any of this, but Cat ploughed on "_Listen_ to me, Jade! I may not know all the details of whatever's going on, but I do know that it's hurting you, no matter how much you try to deny it-"

"Nothing's going on!" I interrupted with a growl, bringing my palm crashing down on the dashboard. That hurt, but I ignored the pain, glaring down at Cat who was looking back at me as if she didn't believe a word I just said. She knew me far too well.

"You like Tori." She said, exasperated

"I don't."

"Fine. You love Tori."

"I- I-" I spluttered with rage that I really shouldn't take out on Cat. I pursed my lips and took a deep breath in to calm myself. "I hate her."

"There's a fine line between love and hate."

"There's not."

"Is so."

"CAT!" I yelled, causing her to jump, her eyes suddenly wide with fear. I backed down a little then; I hated scaring Cat., she was far too fragile for me to keep getting angry at like this.

After a few seconds of silence, in which I allowed myself to calm down again while Cat played with a loose thread on her seat, the red head turned back to me, her seriously look back in place, it was slightly unnerving to see her like this.

"What happened when Tori found you?"

"How do you-"

"She came back to class just before the bell went saying she'd found you but you stormed off." Trust goodie-two-shoes Vega to snitch on me. "So, what happened?"

"I-" I looked down at my lap, debating what to say, but the truth came out sounding small and pathetic. "I kissed her."

Cat simply nodded then shifted around, cracking the door open as she prepared to leave. Before she did, she turned back to face me, looking even more stern than before. "Like I said, you can't just run away from this, you've got to face it sometime, sooner rather than later. You can't keep toying with your heart like this, Jade, or Tori's, or Beck's."

She said nothing more as she climbed out of the car and closed the door behind her before skipping back to school, her usual happy grin back across her face. I watched her go in awe; I can't deny that Cat always amazed me, she was the only person I'd ever get close to calling my best friend, and if _she _was serious about this, then maybe I _should _face these feelings head on instead of trying to escape. I heaved out a sigh and shut the car off, deciding that it was probably best to get back to school and carry on with my day. I could deal with everything later, so long as I stayed away from Tori.

Xxx

"Hey, babe!" Beck stood up from his locker and greeted me cheerfully, tucking an arm around my shoulder and pulling me in to plant a kiss on my forehead. I smile up at him but inwardly I cringed; it didn't feel right anymore. I hated that, I wanted it to feel right again.

It was just the end of school and, due to my class schedule, I'd managed to avoid everyone in my little group of 'friends' since the Cat incident just before lunch. Beck had text me sometime during last lesson to ask if I'd meet up with him when the bell went, so here I was, stood beside him and his locker, waiting to find out what he wanted.

"So, the five of us were thinking of heading out to grab something to eat,." He grinned, leading me around the corner to where the rest of the gang stood including, much to my dismay, Tori. But, of course, they were all crowded around her locker, as usual, and it seemed like they were waiting for Beck and I to turn up. "and we were wondering if you'd care to join us."

"Do I have to?" I said dryly.

"Come on! It'll be fun!" Cat giggled. She was all smiles again, which hopefully meant she wasn't going to broach the subject we'd discussed earlier any time soon.

I chanced a glance at Vega, who was looking fixedly at the floor while scuffing her canvas shoes over the tiles. She looked almost shy. Tori peeked up and caught my eye, but we both quickly turned away just as soon as it had happened. This exchanged seemed to go unnoticed by everyone, except Cat, who gave me a sympathetic, knowing smile. I didn't need that.

"Alright, fine, I'll come!" I said eventually. "I've got nothing better to do anyway."

"Yay!" Cat squealed, clapping her hands together happily. Next to her, Rex groaned loudly, only to have his mouth covered by Robbie's hand when I glared at him. Beck tugged me into a one armed hug and kissed my forehead again; out of the corner of my eye I saw Tori turn away just as he did so. She never used to care when Beck kissed me, but now…

"Are we all just going to stand here or are we getting a move on? 'Cause I'm starving!" Rex piped up, now Robbie had removed his hand.

"Rex!" Robbie cried, before turning a sad smile on us. "Hey, can we hitch a ride with one of you guys?"

"Not it!" Andre said all too quickly. "I'm already taking Tori and Cat."

"Looks like you're with us then, Rob." Beck said, squeezing my shoulder.

"Great." Rex and I said in unison, sarcastically of course.

Xxx

We'd been in the car for five minutes and I already wanted to shove that puppet down the ventriloquists' throat. I'd already suffered through the two of them singing their poor rendition of Forever Baby, and now the doll was whining on about how they had to share a car with "The Wicked Witch of the West." as he kept calling me.

"If you don't shut your face in the next five seconds I will show you what your insides look like." I hissed through gritted teeth, but at least it made the two of them go quiet, only the radio to be heard. That's more like it.

"So." Beck ruined the peace. "What was that about earlier?"

"What was what about?" I asked, staring out of the window instead of looking at him.

"You know what, why'd you storm out like that after yours and Tori's scene?" He glanced over at me as my stomach lurched at the memory. I heard a shuffle behind as Robbie shifted closer, obviously interested in what had happened too.

"Eyes on the road, Oliver." I said. He turned back almost immediately. "And I felt sick."

"Sick?" Robbie question dumbly.

I rolled my eyes and twisted around to face him; he retreated back in his seat. "Yes, sick. I had to kiss Vega, so what do you expect?" I spat. They'd buy that. "I'm surprised you and Sinjin both didn't puke your guts up after that vomit-inducing display earlier."

"I did." Rex stated.

Robbie flushed and muttered something about it not being his choice.

"And you." I accused, spinning back in my seat to face my boyfriend. "I missed your little stint with that other Vega! What happened?"

"Well, if you hadn't run off you would know." Beck said under his breath, but I hadn't missed it.

"What." I gritted my teeth again, ready to fight back his retort, but it didn't come.

"It went surprisingly well, actually." He said, turning the steering wheel to the right as we pulled up into the restaurants parking lot. "Well, for Trina."

He flashed me a smirk as we got out of the car and slammed the doors to. A quick look around told us that Andre, Cat and Tori were here already, judging by his car parked not too far from ours, so we made our way inside in near silence, save for one thing Rex just had to bring up.

"You looked like you enjoyed your kiss with Tori, Jade." He said suggestively, leaning closer to me as he spoke.

"That's disgusting." I said, shoving my hand in his face to push him away while inside my stomach did some kind of summersault. God, I hoped the puppet was the only one to notice that… no! I didn't enjoy kissing Vega, so there was nothing to notice... hmm, maybe I should stop lying to myself.

We found the other three easily. Beck went off to the bathroom while Robbie shifted into the booth next to Andre leaving the only space for me to sit right next to Vega. Typical. She didn't look too pleased about this either, from what I could tell by the look of her face as she stared down at the table, maybe I could convince Beck to swap seats when he came back.

The three others began their usual mind-numbing chatter, I think Andre was saying how pleased he was to have found Jessica as a stage kissing partner, but I was too distracted to pay attention. The booth we were in was small, and I'd tried to leave enough room for Beck when he came back without being too near to Tori, but apparently that wasn't working. All she did was move slightly so she could rest her elbow on the table, but when her arm brushed might I felt my skin erupt with goose bumps and an unexplainable wave of something like butterflies hit my stomach. Urg, just what I need. Thankfully, Beck came back just at that point, but he sat down in the place next to me, giving me no time to ask if we could switch places.

We browsed the menus, little conversations held here and there about the food, what sounded better, who was going to get what. I did my best to avoid touching Vega with my arm as I tried to move around, but the tiny space was making it difficult. It seemed to take forever for the waiter to come to our table and take our orders, then another eternity for the food to actually arrive, although everyone else seemed pleased to have time to catch up, seeing as we were all so busy with our projects to spend much time together. Not that I cared much, I was quite happy to have a break from them.

The waiter from before placed a big bowl of pasta and shrimp in front of me, and, of course, they hadn't bothered to remove the shrimps tails. He must have seen the look on my face because Mr waiter had run off to another table before I could open my mouth to complain.

"I told you not to order it." Beck said with a slight sigh.

"Yeah, well, this is what I want to eat." I snapped back, deciding to eat around the shrimp instead of wasting my precious time squeezing the disgusting little things just to do the job the chief should have done in the first place.

"Hey! What did the young shrimp say when his mom asked him why he wouldn't share any of his toys?" Cat giggled, earning one of said crustaceans to the face- "It slipped!" I protested when everyone else at the table turned to glare at me.

The meal was boring. Everyone else was droning on and on about whatever while I sat there just picking at my food, trying to tune out Vega's voice when she spoke, or ignore the tingle I felt in my arm whenever we accidentally made contact. After a short while I decided that, as I'd paid for the shrimp, I'd eat it, so spent my time squashing them with my fork rather than my fingers in order to rid them of their tails. It worked, thankfully, but I still had the tail to get rid of. Picking it up gingerly in my fingers, I took the shrimp tail out of my bowl and deposited in the first place I could find: Vega's hair.

"Jade!" She squealed, jumping up from her seat. Unfortunately, this caused a chain reaction. Her knee hit the table as she moved knocking the spaghetti bolognese she'd been eating all over me.

"VEGA!" I yelled, also jumping up from my place, the spaghetti slipping down my shirt to the floor. "Look what you've done!"

"_I've _done!" She screeched, pointing a finger at my face. "What _you've _done, more like! You put the shrimp tail on my head!"

She picked the thing out of her hair and threw it on the table, her jaw set in anger as she glared at me. By this point we'd drawn rather a lot of attention from other customers in the restaurant. Both Andre and Beck seemed too noticed too, as the both stood up, Andre placing a comforting arm on Tori's arm, Beck doing the same to me, but we both shook them off. The memory of earlier in the janitors closet was still fresh in my mind, no matter how hard I tried to forget it, and right now I couldn't tell if I wanted to punch the half-Latina in front of me, or repeat what had happened. It was a very weird contradiction of emotions, thoroughly confusing me, almost driving away the frustration at this incident . But I couldn't let that happen, I had to keep up my angry front around everyone else, I couldn't let Tori Vega break me like this.

"You're lucky we're in public, Vega, or I'd rip your head off." I hissed, pointing my finger to her face instead. I couldn't let her get away with it, though, so I picked up my bowl and emptied the remaining food right over her head.

Xxx

"You're unbelievable." Tori said, washing her hands off in the sink.

After our little argument, the restaurant owner came barging over to our table, obviously not too pleased by what had happened. He'd ordered us to leave immediately, but was kind enough to let Tori and I clean ourselves up in the restrooms, so long as we promised not to kill each other. It was a difficult promise to keep, but I needed to get rid of the bolognese sauce that was splattered all down my front.

"You overreacted." I scoffed as I picked at a piece of spaghetti that had stuck itself to my clothing and dropped it down the sink.

"You put a shrimp tail in my hair!"

"You deserved it."

Tori turned round to face me as I said this. "How did I deserve it!"

I shrugged. Okay, maybe she didn't exactly deserve it, but it was funny nonetheless, for the short space of time that it had only been her covered in food. We continued our clean up in silence, it reminded me a little of the time I'd faked my black eye to get Tori in trouble, then ended up helping her scrape crusty food off the walls. I still don't know why I'd bothered to help her out then, but I was starting to lose sense of anything I did around the brunette lately.

"Is this about earlier?" Tori said quietly after a while.

"What do you mean?" I replied, freezing in the action of sponging my shirt with a paper towel. I knew _exactly _what she meant, and she just had to bring it up.

"You know what." She said, her voice still quiet "You kissed me, Jade."

"It's called stage kissing, Vega. You know, acting. It's what we go to school for."

"Oh yeah, in the janitors closet with no one else around, and after we'd done our play, that was really stage kissing, Jade." She retorted, sarcasm dripping from every word.

I didn't want to talk about this now. I didn't want to deal with it, or admit exactly why I'd kissed Vega in the closet, not now. So, maybe I liked her. I didn't want to, but I did, and that kiss had only confirmed those feelings. It wasn't just the play that made me feel that way, but something more, something real. Urg, I hated it! Why Vega! Of all the people in the world it could have been. I must be being punished for something.

Of course, I didn't say any of this to the girl in question.

"It meant nothing." I snarled, chucking the used paper towels into the trash can and grabbing my bag. "And I'm with Beck anyway."

I wasn't sure what made me add that last part, but I did, and before Vega could say another word, I headed to the door.

"Just forget about it." I said and, with that, I left Tori with a look of annoyed confusion on her face so I could meet up with my boyfriend and the others in the parking lot and go home.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hey! I hope you all enjoyed reading that chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! And it was a very fun chapter to write.**  
><strong>And thank you again to everyone who readfav'ed/alerted/reviewed last time!**

**Anyway, I'm going to use this space to do a little shameless self promo. I'm part of a Victorious RP on Tumblr (Victorious-rp) along with a couple of other writers here. **  
><strong>I play Tori, and Balzotheclown (our Andre) recently started posting our roleplay up on ff . net. <strong>  
><strong>If you're interested to read what we're doing then just go here: <strong>

**www. fanfiction .net /s/ 7162435 /1/ VicJORIous _A_ Victorious_RP**

**(take out the spaces, of course.)**  
><strong>Feedback is much appreciated.<strong>


	10. Chapter 10

**Tori's POV:**

I would personally like to thank whoever invented the wonderful thing known as the weekend. Now, don't get me wrong, I love school and weekdays and everything, but there's nothing quite like bumming around all day, just slouched on the couch in front of the tv, still wearing my pyjamas and dressing gown. And with dad at work, mom away at her sisters and Trina out for the day, it left just me, alone, with the house to myself. A nice, peaceful, relaxing weekend where I didn't have to think about anything that had happened during the week and could just laze around doing nothing all day… or so I thought.

It was about noon when the doorbell rang, disturbing me from the unintentional nap I was enjoying; _twice in one week, that's not fun._ And I still hadn't been sleeping too well, the thoughts I didn't want to think always chose bed time to buzz around my head. Still dressed in my summer pjs, a lavender dressing gown hanging off my shoulders, I trudged over to the door only to be greeted enthusiastically by Andre, Cat and Robbie, along with Rex, all looking bright eyed and wide awake, much unlike myself. See what I mean about my friends randomly inviting themselves over?

"Hey, Tori Vega!" Andre grinned as he walked passed me and sat down in the exact spot I'd been sitting in just seconds ago… _why does that keep happening!._ Cat and Robbie followed suit, each greeting me happily as they went by.

"So, to what do I owe this home invasion?" I asked, feeling cranky from being woken up by uninvited guests.

"We just came to see you." Robbie said in his usual innocent voice.

"And what a fine mess you look." Rex added.

I finally let the dressing gown fall off my body so I could throw it in Rex's face, earning noises of protest from puppet and master- although you can't really call Robbie Rex's _master_- and shouts of laughter from Cat and Andre. I ran a hand through my still tangled hair, watching as my friends settled themselves down and with a sigh, I let them win.

"Okay, fine! You guys make yourselves at home; I'm going to go shower and change."

They all made noises of acknowledgement, Rex, now free of the robe, opened his mouth to no doubt make a comment that had something to do with me showering but I shot him a Jade worthy glare, instantly shutting the puppet up.

Jade. Yep, my mind had strayed back to her, as it had done every time I let my guard down and stopped concentrating. In fact, pretty much every time I closed my eyes all I saw was her and all I felt were her lips against mine, just like in the janitors' closet. But I wasn't meant to think about that. She'd told me to forget it, but I couldn't. I'd tried to let it go, I tried desperately not to think about anything to do with Jade West, but she was all I _could _think about.

Since the stage kissing project, everything had changed, for me at least. A bunch of hidden feelings that I never understood surfaced and now they won't leave me alone. Not to mention the many, many questions that came with these feelings. But the main one at the forefront of my mind right now was: why did Jade kiss me in the janitors' closet? I mean, she didn't, she _couldn't, _like me like_ that_… could she? She said it meant nothing. She said she's with Beck. What was that supposed to mean anyway? I know she's with Beck; the facts are right in front of my face everyday! Maybe she just did it to mess with me, that makes more sense, and it certainly worked.

That's one thing I hate about showers, they give you time to think. Like, really think. You can think throughout the day about anything and you can always find a distraction when you need it, but not in the shower, no sir! There's something about the streaming water and peace that almost forces you to over think everything. Like I was now, with Jade, and the kiss, and, urg! I just didn't _want_ to think about it!

I shut the shower off and got dressed; I'd brought my clothes to the bathroom with me because I did _not_ trust Rex, After drying my hair and applying just a little bit of make-up I went to step out of my room to see my friends when I felt my phone vibrate in my shorts pocket. I fished it out and raised an eyebrow as an unknown number flashed on the screen, telling me I had a text message.

**Are you alone?- Jade.**

I stopped in my tracks, just at the top of the stairs, and re-read the message a couple of times to check it really said what I thought it did. What the-

_**Cat, Andre and Robbie are here. Why?**_

She didn't take long to respond.

**When will they be gone?**

_**No idea. They just got here. It wasn't planned. Why, Jade?**_

I waited this time, wondering what she was thinking. I was about to head downstairs again when she text back, stopping any further process.

**I'll be round later.**

I frowned as I read the text. Why on Earth did Jade want to come over to mine? I was itching to find out, but I knew her too well, and if I tried to ask, she'd never tell me until she was ready, so I sent her back a short reply as I headed towards the kitchen where my friends had congregated.

_**Okay then, see you later.**_

I stuffed the PearPhone back into my pocket, knowing I wouldn't get a reply, and joined Cat by the fridge as she raided it for drinks, Robbie and Andre sat at the table playing throw and catch with an apple. I love them, but I do hang around with some nutballs.

"Not that I don't want you guys here, but _why_ are you here?" I asked, taking the glass of apple juice that Cat handed to me before scampering off to give the boys their drinks. She wandered back by my side, a knowing smirk on her face as if she knew exactly what I had been thinking and who I'd been texting, making me wish I hadn't told her anything.

"We were bored and in the neighbourhood, so we thought we'd pop by for a visit." Andre told me, chucking the apple a little too hard so that Robbie missed the thing entirely and it ended up whacking him in the forehead. "Oops, sorry Rob!"

"That's okay." The ventriloquist said pathetically, adjusting his glasses and rubbing his forehead while Cat giggled. You know, Jade was right, those glasses I used for the play did look a lot like Robbie's.

I've got to stop thinking about things related to Jade.

"Right, so you're bored and decided it'd be fun to come to my house, rob my refrigerator of beverages and throw fruit at each other?"

"Pretty much." Andre grinned, getting up from his seat to stand opposite Cat and I, Robbie copying his actions, stumbling a little as he went. "But really, what can we do?"

I shrugged, _how was I supposed to know? I'd planned to do nothing all day_! I took a gulp of my apple juice while the others made plans: movies, mini golf… before I knew it I was being dragged out the door, away from my comfy seat on the couch, to do who knows what with my three friends.

Xxx

"See ya!" I called over my shoulder as I got out of Andre's car and waved goodbye to him, Cat and Robbie.

We'd spent the day running around the mall, generally being crazy and having fun. We'd stopped off at the cinema at one point to watch a comedy that none of us were really paying no attention too, eventually getting kicked out when Rex tried to start a popcorn war, only to have his piece of popcorn hit a sugar-filled Cat, who took it personally and practically screamed the whole cinema down. Needless to say, we're banned from the place for quite some time. After calming the over sensitive red head down, which didn't take long, we ended up in a Freezy Queen where we spent the rest of the afternoon chatting and eating endless abouts of ice cream. We decided to call it a day once it started to get dark out and Cat's brother text her to say the goldfish had run away and he needed help getting him back… I don't know…

I'd have forgotten about Jade coming over if she hadn't been stood leaning against the front door frame, coffee in hand, evidently waiting for me.

"I don't like waiting." She said shortly, examining her nails with a bored expression on her face while crumpling the empty Styrofoam cup and tossing it into a flower pot.

"I'm sorry?" I replied, raising an eyebrow at her; it wasn't like she'd specified a time, so she hadn't really been kept waiting. Jade moved out of my way so I could unlock the door but stood right behind me, tapping her foot impatiently on the porch, then shoving straight past me as soon as I got the thing open.

"Come in, make yourself at home, everyone else does." I said sarcastically under my breath.

But that's just what Jade did. She sat down on the couch, still with her usual look of pure boredom and I took a seat next to her, not too close, but close enough for my heart to start racing at the mere proximity. We were silent; I was pretty sure Jade could hear my rapid heart beat as she stared unseeing in front of her, like she was thinking through what she wanted to say. I watched her for a moment, not wanting to interrupt, but yearning to know just why she was here in the first place.

"Uh, Jade?" I said timidly. I'd reached my hand out to tap her on the leg for attention, but withdrew it immediately as soon as she snapped round to face me, the look of uninterested now one of anger.

"What, Vega?" She spat.

"You came here to see me." I said, now irritated. Really, _she'd_ text _me_ to ask if I were alone, vaguely stated that she'd be over later, then snaps at_ me_ like _I _was the one doing all of this. "What did you want?"

"I hate you, Vega." She stated after a pause.

"I am aware." I replied, rolling my eyes, hoping to hide the disappointment I suddenly felt.

"But, I _really _hate you." She drew closer and I swallowed a lump in my throat. Her tone almost sounded like she was trying to convince me that she actually hated me, which I found odd.

"Thanks, Jade, but I know this already." I sighed through gritted teeth. "Now is that all you wanted to tell me, because it's been a long day and I would like some peace-"

I went to get up, but Jade grabbed the sleeve of my hoodie, pulling me so I fell back down, right in front her and like so many times this week, her face was just inches away from mine, her breathing harsh as she fixed me with a steely glare. "I really don't like you."

This conversation was getting on my nerves. "Yes! I get it, Jade! You don't like me!" I huffed, trying to wrench my arm from her grasp, but she just pulled me down so I was now sat beside her, so very close. My breath caught in my throat, putting a stop to the rest of my retort.

Jade shifted so she was sat sideways on, leaning back against the sofa, a blank expression back in place. She propped her legs up on my lap, crossing them at the ankle and I felt my stomach clench at the gesture; what was she doing? Hadn't she messed with my head enough this week without having to come over to my house and continuously tell me she hates me?

"Why are you really here, Jade?" I asked, hating the silence and needing an answer.

She sat up again and lent forward, her sharp green eyes studying my face as she did so, I tried not to gulp because she'd see it, instead I stared right back, attempting the same blank look she was giving me, but I nervously bit my lip out of habit. She noticed.

"Do I scare you, Vega?" She whispered, leaning closer. "Do I make you… _nervous_?"

She brushed her fingers over my cheek and I involuntarily shuddered at the contact, causing her to smirk. I don't know what she's doing to me. She was so close, the subtle scent of her perfume, along with the ever present hint of coffee, was filling me, her nearness intoxicating me and I'd forgotten how to breathe properly. It was stupid, just silly teenage hormones acting up, right? Her eyes narrowed and her smirk fell, replaced with a look of concentration as her index finger smoothed over my lips to my chin, lifting my head up a little as she moved forward, her nose brushing lightly against mine.

"Do I?"

Her other hand was on my knee and oh God, I couldn't breathe at all! My brain was full of fuzz and nothingness and all I could do was stutter over a non-existent response. Did she make me nervous? I didn't know, I didn't know anything right now.

The corners of her mouth twitched into another smirk and she tapped the bottom of my chin with her fingertip.

"I hate how you make me feel." She murmured, like she was talking to herself.

"How do I make you feel?" I said quietly, the missing breath from before escaping as, somehow, the words found their way through my mental block before I could stop them. My eyes were now trained on her mouth, watching her tongue as she licked her lips almost teasingly.

She shrugged nonchalantly, but, as I looked up, I could see something else behind her eyes, and I instantly realised she was just as lost as I was with this. "Like I want to kiss you and kill you at the same time."

"That's pretty twisted, even for you." Where were these words coming from? I hardly even knew where I was right now, let alone how to create a coherent sentence.

Jade chuckled softly. "I 'spose."

She drew away completely, even removing her legs from mine, and I found myself instantly missing the contact as soon as it was gone. We stayed silence again, my heart still drumming away, neither of us looking the others way, save for the too frequent glances I kept throwing the paler girl out of the corner of my eye. She was chewing on her bottom lip and when I noticed this, it only increased the awkward tension in the air and the desperate urge to kiss the girl, which had been building up over this short time, bubbled away in the pit of my stomach. She must have sensed me watching because she turned, our eyes locking and I felt myself leaning forward uncontrollably, Jade mirroring my action, wanting nothing more than to capture her soft lips-

"Hey, sista!"

The front door opened with a bang and Trina's screech echoed through the room as she barged her way in, laden with a ton of shopping bags and a complete change of outfit from the one she was wearing this morning, including a pair of dark sunglasses perched precariously on her nose. Jade and I froze, just a whisper away from one another, then, as if pulled back to her senses, Jade bolted up from the seat and gathered up her Gears of War bag she had abandoned on the floor when she came inside.

"I shouldn't be here." She muttered and, before I could even think of stopping her, she raced out of the door, pushing passed Trina on the way, making her glasses fall to the floor with a clattered.

"What was _that _about?" My sister asked, flummoxed, as she picked up the shades. "Was that Jade?"

Even if I had an answer, I wouldn't be able to say it, my voice lost in shock and a variety of emotions I didn't expect to feel right now: hurt, anger, mixed with the confusion I had been feeling far too often lately. Twice now Jade had been so close to me, then made a run for it at the very last minute, leaving me breathless, speechless and desperate for more, that I knew I would never get. Why did she keep doing this! Did she just enjoy confusing me? Did she get her kicks from _fucking _with my mind?

"Tori?" Trina's tentative voice broke my thoughts; I must have been glaring at the door, the spot where Jade had vanished, because she was giving me a nervous look. She tossed her shopping bags to one side and took the seat Jade had just vacated, though not as close. "Is everything okay?" She asked in a tone of genuine concern.

"I- I'm fine." I stammered.

"Are you sure, you don't look fine-"

"I'm fine!" I interrupted loudly, jumping to my feet. "I just… I just need to go to sleep."

I took off up the stairs two at a time, leaving a flabbergasted Trina in my wake. I hadn't meant to yell at her, particularly when she actually seemed worried about me, but I couldn't handle her questions, especially when I was still left without an answer, in fact, I just had more questions myself. I slammed the door behind me and collapsed onto my bed, hoping to maybe fall asleep at a reasonable time tonight as I definitely felt exhausted right now.

Xxx

The alarm clock flashed, mockingly displaying 3am as the time and I was still wide awake, twirling my PearPhone around in my hands. I'd spent the last few hours trying to work up the courage to contact Jade and get to the bottom of this. The number she had used to text me earlier had become a permanent fixture on the screen during that time and the call and end call buttons were being pressed almost simultaneously as I chickened out every time.

Finally, after hours of debating whether or not just to leave it and attempt to sleep it off, I settled on sending a text, just a simple one, but one I hoped would lead to answers.

_**Jade, we need to talk.**_

I wondered if she was asleep, I didn't want to wake her. But apparently she wasn't as a reply appeared just moments later.

**No, we don't. **Stubborn as ever.

My fingers hurried over the buttons to respond. _**Yes we do, Jade. We need to talk about this.**_

**Stop texting me. **She's impossible

_**No! Jade, please?**_

**Don't make me change my number.**

I sighed and rolled my eyes.

_**Jade, I want an answer.**_

**We all want things we can't have, Vega.**

I should've known she wouldn't make this easy for me.

_**Can I at least call you so we can talk about this?**_

I was amazed by how quick she was responding to me, she wouldn't even be this fast if we were talking face to face.

**No. Fuck off, I'm sleeping.**

_**Obviously, that's why we're having this conversation, you're sleep texting.**_

I spoke too soon. Her next reply came a little slower than the rest, maybe she was trying to think of a clever retort to my sarcasm.

**Just leave me the fuck alone, Vega.**

At that I threw my phone onto the bed, knowing that this was going nowhere. I fell back onto my pillow and ran my hands through my hair in frustration, but few minutes later my phone went off again, surprising me with another text from Jade.

**Look, I'm… sorry. We'll talk about it. Maybe. But just let me fucking sleep now, okay?**

I read though the text at least three times; did Jade West just say she was sorry! I think I may have to save this text forever in my phone. With a bit of a smile I sent her a final text back.

_**Thank you, Jade.**_

**Whatever.**

I chuckled a little at that then put my PearPhone on my bedside table, shutting off my light as I did so then settled down into my bed so I could finally get some sleep, happy to know what I needed some time soon, with any luck.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Hey, you guys! I hope you enjoyed the chapter, sorry it took so long.**

**I noticed back in chapter 2 that I the stage kissing project was going to be two weeks long, but it ended up only being a week... oops. Sorry 'bout that.**

**Anyway, thank you again for reading/reviewing/alerting and favourite-ing!**


	11. Chapter 11

**POV: Jade**

It's been just under a week since some crazy impulse forced me to go to Vega's house, and ever since then I've done everything in my power to avoid her. Being sure I was last to arrive to class and first out, ducking behind people in hallways whenever I saw her walking in my direction, ignoring phone calls, deleting texts, gluing myself to people's sides and striking up some tedious conversation just so I wouldn't be caught alone with her. It was pathetic really, but I couldn't face it. I couldn't face her and her questions and these… these _feelings _I got whenever I saw her.

Shealways made me feel something, ever since she first stepped into Hollywood Arts and that performance of Make it Shine blew my mind, although I'd never admit that out loud. I wasn't sure what it was I felt; it was like a fire that grew in the pit of my stomach, making me feel sick and near nervous at the same time. So I put it down to jealously and masked it all with hate so she wouldn't find out how she makes me feel. But now, I don't think I can hide it anymore, and that scares me more than the feeling itself.

I don't know what possessed me to text her that day, or what kept me hiding in my car for an hour, parked just around the corner from the Vega house, before I worked up the nerve to go to the front door. I swear, when no one answered the bell I almost turned and ran for it, but something kept me rooted to the spot, like my boots were suddenly filled with lead, and I remained on her porch, just waiting for someone to arrive. Then she jogged up, all happy and smiley and giggly. I hate how just the sight of her smile now made my breath hitch, it was usually something I'd try to wipe off her face but now it made me happy to see. What changed so suddenly? Just thinking about it made me crush the cup I'd been clinging to and automatically turn on my default mode- which, I suppose others would call 'bitch mode'- giving Tori a glare and snappy statements. It's a defence mechanism, something I have little to no control over, and sometimes I almost regretted it, especially when those sometimes involved her.

Something else I had little control over was my words. Things drop from my brain to my mouth without the thinking process in between, and that's what happened when I got there. I hadn't gone to Tori's to continuously tell her I hate her and the look on her face made me instantly regret it every time the little word escaped. On the surface she was just frustrated, but there was no hiding the disappointment and pain that lay behind her eyes, it made my heart lurch painfully against my ribs when I caught it. I hadn't gone over to play games with her, but that's just me, isn't it? Cold-hearted Jade West who cares for no one but herself. That wasn't true. That was never true. But that's what everyone saw.

And then I slipped and told her I wanted to kiss her. We almost did. Not just me initiating it, but Tori too. She leaned into me just as much as I to her… until her obnoxious brat of a sister had to choose that very moment to barge in.

So I ran.

There was no control over my feet as I raced back to my car and away from the Vega household to spend the next five days watching my every move just to avoid its youngest member and everything that had happened there.

I felt like such a coward as I sat at the table for lunch on Thursday, practically sat on Beck's lap as I tried to stay as close to him as possible, and as far away from the half-Latina who was just across from me. I glared at the burrito that Beck made me buy, but lay untouched on the plastic container, glancing up every so often to at the other occupants at the table, occasionally catching Tori's eye as she looked my way too, but I quickly broke the contact, I couldn't… I just couldn't look at her.

"Everything okay?" Beck muttered, nudging my side with his elbow and I flinched away slightly, not meaning too.

"Yes." I hissed, picking up the burrito and taking a forceful bite so I had an excuse not to answer anymore questions.

"So, anyone got any plans for the weekend?" Andre asked, obviously trying to break the awkward tension that had fallen over our usually chatty lunch table.

I tuned out, the chatter muffled around me but the occasional word slipping though: Rex mentioning something about Northridge, Andre talking about a song he's working on, but I noticed I wasn't the only one not listening. Vega was slumped next to Cat, one elbow on the table, cheek pressed to her palm as she toyed with her half eaten pizza slice and chewed anxiously at her bottom lip. It was only when she looked up from the table top and we made eye contact did I realise I was staring at her and the table had gone silent, I could feel the other four watching us as I just sat there, struck dumb from being caught staring at Vega without my usual malice. She cocked an eyebrow at me in question and out of the corner of my eye I saw Cat fighting back a smile.

"I was just checkin' out that ugly wart of yours." My reflex kicked in, insulting the youngest Vega to the best of its ability before I could think of anything myself. "But then I realised it was your face,"

I heard groans, sighs, my name being said in protest, but I'd already got up and left the table before anyone could tell me how much of a gank I was for saying that, yet not before I saw the hurt in those big brown eyes.

Xxx

"So, you comin' or not?"

School went by in a blur again and too soon I found myself stood by Beck's locker, waiting for him to put all of his stuff away so we can go. It's habit now, just to stand there with my coffee cup in hand, watching everyone else leave while he made his transparent locker perfect, but right now I wanted nothing more than to leave, too bad I needed a ride home.

"I dunno." I mumbled into the plastic lid of my drink before I took a sip.

"Come on, we haven't hung out in a while. Just me and you in the RV, okay?" Beck kicked his locker shut and lent against the ones above, his hands shoved deep in his pockets as he watched me for an answer.

I sighed. I probably should, he is my boyfriend after all…

"Fine." I stated. "But not for long."

He smiled and my heart flopped, not in any sort of good way, but in something that felt similar to guilt. I noticed the smile seemed a little forced compared to the usual relaxed grin he'd wear when I was around, and I knew it was my fault. I had to make it up to him.

"Let's go then." He said, nodding in the direction of the doors before pushing himself away from the lockers and walking that way, turning to watch me follow slowly in his wake.

I stuff my unfinished coffee into the nearest trash can before climbing into his car and enduring a too long, silent journey to his place, he hadn't even turned on the radio to mask the awkward. It shouldn't be this hard, two years together and now we sat side by side almost like strangers. He parked up and we went into his RV, him grabbing an apple and falling onto the couch with his feet up on his makeshift table while I collapsed half heartedly next to him.

He took a few small bites of his apple, chewing and swallowing slowly before shifting to sit up straight, placing the fruit down where his feet used to be. "What's up?"

"Nothing."

"Jade." He heaved a sigh, slipping an arm around my shoulder which I pull away from. "You've been distant all week. No, you've been distant for quite a while now, not just with me, but with everything. Tell me what's wrong."

"There's nothing to tell." My walls were up. Big metal walls that even my boyfriend couldn't tear down. Boyfriend; why did that word sound so wrong now? I could feel a sting in my eyes at the thought but I refused to show that weakness.

"There obviously is." Beck said with a quiet annoyance in his voice.

"Don't use that tone on me." I spat, my hands clenched into fist.

"Jade." He said, exasperated.

"Beck." I replied mockingly, unable to bite my tongue,

He slumped back in the chair, almost in defeat. "What's happened… between us? I know you're not exactly the most affection person in the world but lately I feel like you're slipping away from me."

All I could do was shrug. _No, Beck. Please don't make me talk about this._

"Do you even want this anymore?" Beck asked, looking down at his hands.

I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. My heart had leapt to my throat then dropped to my stomach in a matter of seconds and it felt like it was suffocating me. I knew the answer to his question, but I couldn't say it, I didn't want to say it-

"That's a no, then." He answered for me, his voice falling to something just above a whisper.

"I- I'm sorry." My words sounded strangled as they forced their way through.

"So it is a no!" His head snapped up to look at me and I shrank back at the look: hurt, anger, betrayal all staring back at me accusingly. He turned away again and ran his hand through his hair as he swallowed back a lump in his throat.

"I'm sorry." I repeated, not sure what else I could possibly say. I was too late to take it back now and, honestly, part of me felt like it was better this way, to end this before it got any worse, before _I _got any worse. Because I couldn't hide behind Beck forever.

I reached out a hand to his arm but he shrugged it away. "It's okay." He said calmly, taking in a deep breath. "I've known this was coming for a while now, I guess I just didn't want to face it."

He blew the breath out heavily and his fingers combed through his hair again, gripping at the back for a second as if it was steadying him. Fuck, this was painful. Beck and I had broken up a couple of times before, over stupid, insignificant little things, but we always came back to each other in the end. Only this time, everything seemed final, and I knew, once this conversation was over it was all over, and there was no going back.

"Beck?" I said weakly.

He shook his head, leaning forward a little to stare straight ahead of him, his hands laced together and resting between his knees. I saw a glint in the corner of his eye and it suddenly occurred to me that I had never once seen Beck cry before, not even fake tears on stage. Oh God, I didn't want to be the one to make him cry, never had I wanted him to shed tears, not over me, I'm not worth it.

A split second later he huffed out a short laugh and a smile appeared on his lips, not as forced as the one by his lockers, but there was still a hint of him putting it on.

"Yeah, things haven't been right for a while, have they?" It was more like a statement than a question. "I 'spose, things have to run their course in the end."

"Yeah." I murmured. I didn't know how to react; I'd never seriously broken up with someone before. The times with Beck were only results of arguments, a spur of the moment break up that I regretted as soon as I calmed down. But now the only regret I felt was for hurting him… and for feeling _glad _that this was it.

We sat in silence, letting it all sink in. The tears previously stinging my eyes had faded along with Beck's, and we were both surprisingly calm about everything. I don't know if that was better or worse than the over dramatic break ups you saw on the tv all the time, but it didn't feel good. After a while, he stood up, hands shoved into his jean pockets and a slight lean in his stance, the usual Beck look. I looked up from the spot on the floor I had been staring at and he shrugged at me, offering an unsure smile.

"So, you need a lift back?"

I shook my head. "No, it's okay. I'll walk."

He looked concerned, quickly looking out of his windows then back at me. "It's getting kinda dark out, and you're house is quite a way from here. Are you sure?"

I nodded. "I'm fine."

He shrugged again as I got to my feet and shuffled towards the door. He followed awkwardly behind and stood leaning on the doorframe as I stepped out into the cool evening, turning back for a second to look at the man who used to be my boyfriend, the one I used to love, and, no matter how much of a gank I was to him, he loved me back. All good things come to an end, I guess, and now our time had run out with only a dull ache in my chest to mark the end.

"So, I'll see you at school tomorrow?" I said, surprised by how hushed my voice was.

"Yeah, see you at school."

And, like that, he was gone. Not completely out of my life as there seemed to be some unspoken agreement between us to remain friends. I could do that, we were still close enough to have a friendship emerge from the remains of our relationship, and it hadn't finished in a way that would mean one of us totally hated the other. Although, I felt I deserved his hatred. It was the least I deserved.

I turned away from the closed door and started my long trip home.

Xxx

I'd been walking for about an hour, my feet just taking me where ever they felt like going because I really wasn't concentrating on what I was doing. Nothing felt real. The only thing that registered in my mind was that dull ache that had settled somewhere between my heart and my lungs, simultaneously suffocating me, while somehow letting me know that I'd be able to breath freely again soon, new, fresh air that would help clear away the cobwebs that I'd tangled myself in.

It was getting darker. The odd streetlight flickered to life as I passed under them, my hands pushed to the very depths of my sweater pockets, my head hung low to avoid catching any unwanted attention from passers-by. I felt slightly cheesy; isn't this the part of the movie where it starts to rain? Just pour buckets down as the lonely, depressed character wanders through the streets, wallowing in their own misery. Was it even misery I felt? I didn't know anymore.

I continued my walk to wherever I was heading and a couple strolled past. They were side by side, the slightly shorter girl leaning her head on the boys shoulder as his arm hooked around her waist, pulling her in close to his body. I watched as their fingers entwined at her side and they went by, smiling lovingly at each other. That's when something cracked. Now the main character of this heartbreaking film realises what they're missing; it may not be the person they left behind, but everything they represented. Now I realised why I had been holding on to Beck for so long, it wasn't _him_, but the love and security he gave me, the arm around my shoulder to keep me grounded when I was about to do something stupid and the comfort of having someone by my side. He was my rock, purely because of everything he stood for.

Before I knew what was happening, I had fallen against the nearest wall, tears pouring down my face in uncontrollable streams. I didn't miss him, I missed all that. All that cheesy love stuff that I'd never admit to if anyone bothered to ask me. It had only been gone for a short while, but the knowledge that it wasn't coming back, at least not in the near future, grabbed me in an iron vice and squeezed my lungs so I could barely breathe. Contrary to popular belief, Jade West does have a heart, and it was currently in the process of breaking, splintering straight down the middle, and it hurt like fuck.

I don't know how long I had been shrunk in a ball against the brick wall I was using as a support, I could hardly even remember my own name, but the next thing I knew for sure was the pair of small, comforting hands that found their way to my own and held them tight. There was a quiet voice whispering soothing words my way as they picked me off the floor and bundled me into a car parked haphazardly at the side of the road and I was too weak to do anything but follow. Soon I lay on the soft back seats, my head in the persons lap as their fingers stroked through my hair. The smell of cherry filled me as I gasped for air to calm myself, wanting to sit up and stop being such a wreck, as well as wanting to see who had come to my rescue.

I opened my eyes, thankful that the only light was coming from the street lamps outside and the low, setting sun, and tried to take in my surroundings. The car, as far as I could see, was unfamiliar, but the hands above me felt like I knew them already, and I'm sure I recognised the denim of the skinny jeans I had my face pressed against. I turned slightly, just catching sight of a pair of big brown eyes gazing down at me before my mind went hazy and my eyes felt heavy with exhaustion. Next thing I knew I had fallen asleep in their arms, driving to who knows where and, frankly, I couldn't care less at the moment.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: *Runs hand through hair* Phew! That was heavy...  
>It kinda just poured out of me without much thinking, so I hope it's all turned out as well as it read to me... I feel it may be a little rushed, but I dunno. Tell me what you think?<br>I promise the next chapter won't be as heavy, maybe even a little fluffy ;)**

**alwaysjustme15: Yeah, I noticed that Jade/Liz's eyes are blue, but I called them green _before_ I noticed, and a lot of people say her eyes are green, so I'm going to stick to it for this story at least. Besides, I love green eyes xD**

**Well, hope you liked!**


	12. Chapter 12

"DON'T STOP BELIEVING!"

"Oh God, Trina, SHUT UP!" I yelled over my sisters so-called-singing. Not that it worked, she just continued to scream the words at the top of her lungs as we flew through the roads like there was no tomorrow.

We went to the mall after school because Trina was 'in desperate need of new clothes' and, as she was my ride home, I was forced to tag along and help her. Normally, I love shopping, trying on all sorts of wacky fun outfits, most of which I wouldn't actually wear out _ever_, but, with Trina, it was just a nightmare minus the sleep. For three hours I was pulled from store to store in search of the 'perfect' pair of jeans, not even getting to try on a single _sock_ for myself. The only redeeming part was going out for dinner afterward, but, as Trina had managed to spend every dime of her allowance on her new clothes, I had to pay, so it wasn't all great.

On our way home I was sat leaning against the door, my cheek pressed up against the cool window as I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on anything but the pounding headache I had, which was why Trina's noise pollution was bothering me so much. When she ignored my pleas for silence, I just went back to staring out of the window. As we rounded a corner, Trina slowed the car down a little; thankfully, she really is a reckless driver. I gave a small sigh of relief when the song came to an end too and was about to turn to ask her to shut the radio off for a bit when something outside caught my eye. We were travelling down a street very close to home and against a wall lay a ball of what looked very much like human, a very familiar human.

"Trina, stop the car!" I called, fumbling hurriedly for my seatbelt.

"Why?" She asked, glancing in my direction briefly then turning back to the mirror she was admiring herself in.

"Just stop the car!" I panicked.

She'd barely put her foot on the brake before I flung the door open and tumbled out of the car as it slowed. Another car honked its horn loudly and swerved as I stumbled to my feet, ignoring Trina's yells of 'wanting to kill myself' and staggered towards the sobbing form that was Jade West, lying on the concrete, looking a wreck.

"Jade?" I said softly, nervously. She didn't respond. "Jade?"

I tentatively closed the distance between us and my left hand found her right, lacing our fingers together in what I hoped was a comforting gesture, while my other hand brought her to me, holding her closer as her dry sobs wracked her body.

"Shush, Jade, it's okay." I murmured. "It'll be okay." I didn't know what it was, or if it would really be okay, but it seemed to be calming her down a bit, so I kept it up, just whispering hushed words of comfort in her ear.

"Can you get up?" I asked after a short while. She jerked her head a little in reply, so I managed to scoop her up and help her towards the car that was parked at an angle on the curb. Trina was stood up at the drivers side, gaping at us as I helped Jade into the back, where she curled up in a ball again, resting her head on my lap as I stroked her hair.

"What's-?" My sister began, but I shook my head both to tell her to stop and because I didn't actually know _what _was wrong and wasn't prepared to ask just yet; Jade looked like she was in no fit state to talk about it.

Trina raised an eyebrow but said no more as she climbed back into the car and drove off again at a much slower speed than before. The radio was off now and Jade's cries had calmed. She fidgeted slightly in my lap, turning to look up at me, to which I gave a small smile, before her eyes fluttered shut and she drifted off into an exhausted sleep. I continued to play with her hair as I watched her, trying to think of what could possibly happen to make Jade like this. I'd seen her cry before, but nothing this bad; it was weird to see her so vulnerable and not her usual headstrong self. And why had I jumped out of the car to her? It was instinct, to see a friend crying and want to stop to help, I guess, but, as Trina had called after me, I had almost gotten myself killed in the process.

I sighed and watched over Jade as she slept in my lap, breathing heavily and occasionally twitching, her eyes would screw up and she'd make a little humming noise like she was annoyed at whatever was bothering her in her dream. I almost didn't want to wake her when we eventually got to the house, but there was no way I could carry her inside.

"Jade?" I murmured, nudging the girl. She hummed again and swatted at my hand like a cat at a piece of string, I just managed to suppress a giggle. "Jade, wake up, lets go inside."

She huffed and slowly opened her eyes, blinking up at me from where her head still lay on my legs. She looked momentarily blissful, like she was still dreaming, but then she sprang up, surprised, from her position and sat up in the seat beside me, brushing off her clothes as she adjusted herself.

"Where are we?" She asked drowsily, stifling a yawn with her fist.

"My house." I answered.

"Why?"

I bit my lip, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and fiddled with the door handle to my left. Trina had already gotten out of the car and gone inside after tossing me the keys so I could lock up. "You were just lying on the sidewalk, so, um, I kinda picked you up."

She blinked again and rubbed her eyes, her make up already smudged from the tears. I opened the door and slipped out of the car, Jade following, and we walked into the house in silence. I gestured for her to sit on the couch before taking a seat next to her. To my surprise, Trina walked over with two glasses of water and handed them to each of us with nothing but an understanding nod in my direction. Jade took her glass, giving my sister a small, grateful smile, then gulped it down in one, wiping her mouth on her sleeve when she'd finished.

I opened my mouth to talk but before I could say a word, Jade interrupted.

"I don't want to talk about."

I instantly shut my mouth again and nodded, unsure of what to say.

We sat awkwardly side by side and it dawned on me that the last time we were here we had come so close to kissing, if it wasn't for Trina walking in at the wrong moment. A part of me wondered if that had something to do with Jade's behaviour; what she had said still played on my mind, even after a week, her words were all I could think of. It must be affecting her too, but I hadn't had a chance to ask anything about it as she spent the entire week avoiding me. I'd seen her in the corridors, ducking behind people or racing around the corners when she saw me coming. It hurt that she would just do that then leave, this stupid little crush made sure of that. No matter how much I tried to not think about it, it'd creep up on me at the worst times, like when she sat in front of me in class and I'd find I hadn't been paying any attention because I was too busy staring at the back of her head… or like now, getting completely side-tracked from the real issue because I was too busy thinking about how I felt, rather than Jade herself.

"I'm tired." Jade stated after awhile as she ran her finger around the top of the glass still clasped firmly in her hand.

I made a noise of agreement. "Me too."

She got to her feet, looking anywhere but at me while uncomfortably playing with the hem of her jacket. "I should… I should leave…"

"No!" I said, a little too desperately, jumping to my feet too. I rubbed at the back of my neck, hoping she hadn't noticed. I was worried about her that was all. "Stay. I mean, I doubt Trina's gunna wanna drive now, and, you know, you're upset and all…"

To my relief, Jade nodded and sank back down onto the couch, grabbing one of the cushions to plump up, before lying down and curling up, putting said cushion under her head. "Well, get me a blanket or something, Vega." She said in her usual Jade West tone.

I shook my head before I'd even had time to think about it; I couldn't just leave her to sleep on my sofa given the state she was in, could I?

"No, sleep in my bed, you look like you need it."

"I don't need your charity." She spat stubbornly, closing her eyes and shifting around to get comfortable.

"Jade." I said, rubbing my temple. What was I even doing right now? "Come on, you were lying on the sidewalk for who knows how long, a sofa will do you no good. _I'll _sleep on the floor or something."

She gave me a blank look, her eyes narrowed as she contemplated my offer until she gave me a small nod and got up again; walking passed me without a word to go to my bedroom. I followed cautiously, a few steps behind so that by the time I'd made it into my room, Jade was there searching through my draws.

"Looking for anything in particular?" I asked, wandering up behind her.

"Pyjamas." She said simply, slowly closing my underwear draw before turning to me with a smirk that wasn't quite up to her usual standards but still made me feel embarrassed. "Pretty panties there, Vega." She commented, chuckling as I blushed.

"Shut up." I mumbled, shoving past her to the right draw to toss a spare pair of pyjamas at her. "You get changed in here; I'll go to the bathroom."

She agreed and I almost ran out the door. If I really started to think about it, I'd realise just how weird this situation was, and I still hadn't found out why Jade was curled up on the sidewalk in the first place. I didn't want to ask, it felt like I was intruding on something private and if Jade wasn't ready to tell me yet, then I shouldn't push her, this seemed more delicate than anything she'd usual get upset over, which wasn't much. I changed slowly, not sure how fast Jade would take to get ready; I didn't want to walk in on her half naked, not right now, that would be too awkward. I mentally kicked myself; _not right now_, that last thing I needed was these stupid feelings controlling my thoughts and making me think like _that_. Still, when I made it back to my room, I knocked.

"Come in!" I pushed it open to find Jade already lying in my bed, covers pulled up to her chin like she was trying to hide.

"Pink?" She raised an eyebrow at my choice of night wear and I just rolled my eyes, crossing the room to grab a blanket and a couple of cushions, which I chucked on the floor to form some sort of bed.

"Vega." Jade had been silently watching what I was doing; I could feel her eyes on me even though I wasn't looking at her and only turned when she said my name.

"What?"

She stared for a second then just shrugged. I rolled my eyes again and dropped to the floor, pulling the blanket over my legs as I made my makeshift bed.

"Wait." She said softly "Tori."

I lay on my side and propped myself up on my elbow, my chin resting in my palm to look up at her. "Yeah?"

"Will you…" She paused, biting her lip. "Um…" I saw her shift back in the bed and pull the corner of the covers back then spoke in a forced casual voice "You can sleep here too, if you want. The floor doesn't look too comfy and it is your bed. It's the least I could do…"

Jade trailed off and I felt stunned for a moment, my heart skipping a beat. I quickly got up, crawling under the covers and keeping as much distance between the two of us as possible, seizing the opportunity before she changed her mind. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." She mumbled. "… seriously, don't. Tell anyone and I'll kill you."

"Yes, ma'am."

She smiled at me, a genuine smile, before rolling over so she faced the wall. "Night, Vega."

"Night." I rolled over too and couldn't keep the grin off my face as I drifted off.

Xxx

I woke up feeling dazed. The sunlight was flooding in through my thin curtains and for a brief moment I was oblivious to everything, still clinging to the edges of whatever dream I had been having, until I felt a wave of warm breath wash over the back of my neck and slowly realised that there was an arm draped across my waist. I tensed, then relaxed a bit when I remember just who was next to me in bed, Jade had spent the night, but when had she turned around and snuggled up to me? I guess it was instinct to cuddle up to the source of warmth, and I shouldn't be reading more into this, but I couldn't help but enjoy the arm lying lazily over my hip or the cheek pressed to my shoulder. I felt butterflies fluttering where her hand rested on my stomach, the sick strange feeling I got whenever she was around came rushing back and I closed my eyes, just revelling in the moment, enjoying every second it lasted before it was snatched away. Maybe it was taking advantage, and I'd be kicking myself for it later, but I couldn't help myself.

All too soon I felt Jade begin to stir and I quickly pretend I was still asleep; the last thing I wanted was for her to realise I was enjoying the position we were in. She gave a small grunt as she started to wake and her arm was retracted, my stomach feeling cold from the loss. I took this as my cue to move too, rolling onto my back and stretching my stiff limbs as I did every morning.

"Watch it, Vega." Jade growled sleepily, batting my arm away when I almost hit her in the face.

"Oops," I giggled a little. "Sorry."

"Whatever." She grabbed the duvet and pulled it over her, ripping the entire thing from my body and making me shiver.

"Oi! Give that back!" I grinned, trying to jerk the covers back, but Jades grip remained firm, I could hear her chuckling under her breath.

"Be nice!" I whined.

"When am I ever nice to you, Vega?" She said, turning to face me with an evil smirk while pulling the duvet so it was taken fully from me.

That started a mini tug of war game, which I was losing badly, but both of us were giggling happily as we fought over my bedding. When I managed to get a secure hold on the material, I tugged with all of my might, only for Jade to let go, sending me flying backwards off the bed, tumbling to the floor and dragging the covers with me, along with, much to our surprise, Jade, who had gotten tangled up in the sheets and fell with them, landing on top of me with an "Oof!"

Jade slowly propped herself up on her arms to prevent herself from squashing me, straddling my hips as she did so, her face so close to mine and I felt myself blushing bright red as she looked down at me, going breathless that had nothing to do with the landing. I should move and start getting ready for school, but I was paralyzed, trapped beneath the tattooed girl who looked equally as stunned by this as I was.

A reckless urge took over me, spreading like a wild fire, and before I could control it I'd pushed myself up onto my elbows, leaning in to claim her lips with my own. I expected her to pull away, to ask me what the hell I thought I was doing, except none of that happened and it only took a second before she responded, her lips fitting perfectly into a kiss I didn't realise I'd wanted so much, sending sparks through my veins, boiling my blood to an almost unbearable heat.

Her mouth parted a little, I felt a hesitant tongue sweep my bottom lip, requesting entrance which I willingly gave. Her tongue darted between my lips, eagerly exploring my mouth as my tongue did the same to her. I allowed myself to get lost in it, not caring about consequences or how wrong this probably was, although it felt too right to be wrong.

I thought I may burst into flame as she pressed her body closer against me; I couldn't stop the muffled moan that escaped at her touch, my one hand moved from supporting my weight to cup her cheek, deepening the kiss further-

"Tori! Are you awake!"

Reality crashed back down around us in an instant at the sound of my moms call. I mentally cursed; I was really starting to hate people for these interruptions. Jade was quick to jump off me, breathing heavily as she detangling herself from the bed sheets and kicked them across the floor. I lay flat on my back for a moment, closing my eyes to try to get all of my senses back in alignment, feeling like I'd been knocked off balance.

"Tori?" Mom yelled again; I'd somehow forgotten she'd said anything.

"I'm up!" I called, groaning as I got to my feet and began to search the room for fresh clothes.

Jade stood leaning against my desk, staring at the floor until she finally mumbled "I've got nothing clean to wear."

"You can borrow something of mine." I suggested, grabbing a pair of black skinny jeans and tossing them towards her. She pulled a bit of a face, but nodded all the same.

The tension was thick, almost suffocating, in the air as we changed in silence, our backs turned to each other. I was already regretting my actions and I think she was too, it certainly seemed so. Why did I have to be so stupid? We seemed to make an unspoken decision on to talk about what we'd just done, and it had happened all so fast that I wondered if it had all just been a dream. We went downstairs to get some breakfast without a word, the rest of my family were nowhere to be seen, which wasn't unusual. I walked over to the cupboards to get us both some cereal while Jade made a cup of coffee each and we sat at opposite ends of the table as we ate.

"Beck and I broke up." Jade said, completely out of the blue, making me inhale the spoonful of cornflakes I'd just shoved into my mouth.

"What!" I managed to choke out.

She shrugged. "I just thought you'd want to know why I was on the sidewalk last night."

I gawped at her, unable to believe what I was hearing. She was being so nonchalant about it, like breaking up with her long term boyfriend didn't matter at all. It must matter though; otherwise she wouldn't have been in the state I found her in.

"Close your mouth, Vega, unless you want flies with your breakfast." Jade snapped.

I shook my head. "Why?" I asked in a hushed voice, a million reasons already running around my mind, including the impossibility that _I _was the cause of this.

"It was a mutual decision." She shrugged again, playing with the soggy cereal in her bowl. "And it's been a long time coming. I guess, maybe we were just staying together because it was what we were used to." She sighed. "but, it's for good this time."

Her words turned into a murmur and I wanted to ask her if she was okay with it, if it was because of us, whatever _we _were. After all, we'd already kissed more than once, kisses that weren't for stage, and what she'd said a week ago… I opened my mouth to express these thoughts, but was stopped by the appearance of Trina, who swiped my cereal right from under my nose.

"Well if you're just going to sit there gaping rather than eating it, you can at least let me have it!" She defended, collapsing on the couch in front of the tv.

Jade gave me a meaningful look that told me not to ask anymore about it and I nodded, glad that Trina had stolen my food because for some reason I no longer felt hungry.

Xxx

School blurred by again; I'd pretty much stopped paying attention before it even started, my head was swimming and too full to process the information the teachers were trying to feed me. It seemed that Beck and Jade had agreed to remain friends as they still hung out in our little group together, chatting normally, if a little awkward at first, but nothing to drastic had changed. It hadn't gone unnoticed, but no one mentioned it, even though the break up attracted a small swarm of girls who seemed to follow Beck through the corridors or sit at the table closest to us, giggling loudly. It was strange to not see Jade jealous of them, or snapping at the girls, instead she just ignored them and I wasn't sure if she was just acting, it was hard to tell.

And I couldn't get this morning off my mind. I wanted to talk to her about it, but at the same time I didn't. I couldn't deny that there was a part of me happy that the infamous couple had split up, it meant Jade was single and- I mentally laughed at where the thought was going. Jade wouldn't want me…but that kiss in my room and the one in the closest… my thoughts were so scrambled I couldn't think straight at all.

I hardily registered the bell ringing, signalling the end of the day until all the students in Sikowitz's classroom got up to leave and the crazy acting teacher dived out of the back door like the room had just be set alight. Everyone was happy, chatting about their plans for the weekend as they walked though the corridors, I dimly heard my friends discussing what they were going to do, but yet again my brain hurt too much to listen. These headaches were coming to frequent, all from over thinking about a certain dark haired girl who stood silently next to Andre, still wearing the clothes I'd let her borrow. Either no one had noticed this, or they didn't want to bring it up, but I was sure none of them knew that Jade had spent the night at mine, not even Cat, who seemed to know everything about the two of us recently.

"Are you coming, Tori?" the little red head asked, bringing about from my own little world.

"Huh?"

"We were thinking of going out this weekend." Andre explained "Maybe not to the beach, after what happened last time."

Everyone agreed, except Cat, who looked at us in confusion "I had a good time!"

"Yeah, but you weren't boiling to death in an RV!" Robbie said "And you didn't drink fish water!"

We ignored him.

"So, any ideas where we can go?" I asked.

"Camping?" Beck suggested with a shrug.

"One time, when my brother went camping, he thought he saw a bear, so he ran into the woods to find it and came back with a pet bumblebee."

We stared blankly at Cat. "Girl, you're crazy!" Rex laughed cruelly. Robbie threw a hand over his mouth, apologising to the girl who hadn't paid any attention to the puppet in the first place.

"Anyway" Andre said, trying to get us back on track. "I don't think camping's such a good idea, I think it's meant to rain this weekend."

With that plan scuppered, we all stood crowded around my locker, each silently thinking of what we could do with a rainy weekend ahead of us. My eyes travelled to Jade, who hadn't spoken the entire time we were there, not even making one of her usual sarcastic comments. She just stood with her arms folded across her chest, looking in the opposite direction to all of us. In fact, she hadn't spoken to _me _all day, she'd stopped avoiding me all together, but still hadn't bothered to even insult me just once! The girl was beyond confusing and I was beyond confused, it wasn't a good combination. I wanted to get to the bottom of this, but hadn't had a chance.

"Why don't we just go home for now, come up with some plans and we'll talk about it in the morning?" I said after a while and there was a murmur of agreement from the group.

"Right, so that's settled then!" Beck said, clapping his hands together and moving away from the locker he was leaning against. "I will see you guys tomorrow." With that, he left, slowly followed by Andre and Robbie, bidding their goodbyes as they went off in separate directions. That just left me, Cat and Jade, still stood by my locker as I gathered the books I needed for homework.

Cat giggled as she looked between the two of us, grinning from ear to ear.

"What?" Jade spat, glaring at the shorter girl.

Cat just giggled again. "See you at the weekend!" She called before skipping off.

For the first time since this morning, Jade and I looked at each other, both utterly confused. The school had slowly emptied, and now Cat had gone it left just the two of us alone, apparently a situation Jade wasn't too pleased with, as she shifted her weight awkwardly from foot to foot.

"I'm gonna-"

"Jade." I interrupted with a sigh. Now I finally had the opportunity to properly talk to her alone, I wasn't going to let it go. I needed to get to the bottom of this. "Please, can we just talk?"

She looked around, obviously searching for some sort of escape, but I couldn't take it anymore. While she was distracted, I grabbed her wrist, just as she did to me so many times, and hauling her off to the janitor's closet we'd been in so many times before.

"Vega! Get the fuck off me!" She growled, attempting to pull out of my grasp, but I refused to let go until we were safely inside and the door was locked. Why there was a lock on the inside of the closet, I wasn't sure, but it certainly came in handy.

I flicked the light on to find her glaring, her eyes darting all over the place, except at me. For some reason, this prompted me to speak.

"Jade. We need to talk."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I wasn't sure if I was going to upload this chapter, but I have a serious lack of inspiration and I don't think it's going to get better any time soon, so I hope you liked it.**

**Thank you all so much for the reviews and everything, I know I've said it before, but they all mean so much to me and help keep this story going. Special shout out to Snapplelinz for all the reviews you gave, they really made my day when I saw them =D**

**There may be a wait for the next chapter, as I'm going to be stuck working a lot and working at a Post Office isn't the most inspiring thing. Sorry in advance.**

**Much love! xx**


	13. Chapter 13

**PoV: Jade.**

I shook my head, hugging my arms tighter around my chest, feeling Vega's glare even as I refused to look at her. I knew this time was coming, but I wished it wasn't this soon. After the whole break down after finishing with Beck just yesterday, then that… that kiss this morning- I still couldn't believe that had happened- it was all too much. But now, I was trapped in a closet by Vega, literally _and_ metaphorically, apparently, while she waited patiently for me to speak.

"There's nothing to talk about." I said in a monotone, staring at the half destroyed broom I'd taken my scissors to the other day.

Tori huffed in disbelief. "_Yes_, there is, Jade." She said slowly, deliberately, taking a step forward which I backed away from. "What was that about this morning?"

I snapped, defensively.

"You tell me! You were the one who-" I cut myself off, even though I knew there was no one around to hear, I still couldn't say it out loud.

"Kissed you?" Vega scoffed. I flicked my eyes up briefly to catch her with her arms also folded, biting her bottom lip in frustration as she glared at the wall to the left. "You were quite happy to kiss me back. Not to mention _you _kissed _me_ right here, in this closet!"

"Don't." I cringed as my voice came out quieter, weaker than I meant it. I couldn't let this get to me, I couldn't let Tori Vega break me, but that's exactly what was happening.

She huffed. I could tell she was holding back from saying exactly what was on her mind. We both were.

While the conversation, or lack of, was extremely awkward, there was something oddly comforting about the janitors' closet. It was always the first place I came to when I needed time alone, or a private place to talk. I'd discovered the sanctuary in my first week of Hollywood Arts, when I had no one, when I was nothing but a wannabe actor, just like pretty much every single person who passed through the school. Now everyone knew me as the cold hearted bitch with the hot- now ex- boyfriend, and quite the reputation, one that I hadn't set out to build up, but didn't pause to fix.

I'd come to the closet and hide from the unwanted, to take my anger out on the innocent knickknacks scattered everywhere whenever something went wrong. Beck and Cat found me here one day, beating a wooden mallet against the floor, after I'd messed up an alphabetical improv challenge. I hadn't been able to escape them since. I'd still hide in here though. Whenever I disappeared off, they knew exactly where to find me and pester me until I told them what was wrong, or 'til they gave up, which was more likely. Eventually, they learnt just to leave me to it. Unlike Vega, who never gave up.

"I'm so confused" Tori said quietly after a stretch of silence, bringing me back from my reminiscing. She swept a hand through her long hair, turning to meet my eye as she chewed her bottom lip. "I don't know what's going on anymore. Ever since this stage kissing project, it's just been so… so-"

"Confusing" I finished in a mutter.

Toti nodded, the corners of her mouth twitched as if she was trying to fight back a smile, but instead she sighed.

"Why'd you break up with Beck?" She asked suddenly.

It was my turn to scoff.

"What do you want to hear, Vega? That I broke up with him to be with you?"

_Shit_. That wasn't meant to come out of my mouth. Tori looked a sour mix between hurt and angry as the words sunk in.

"Oh yeah." She said slowly, the sarcasm dripping from her words could've created a puddle, or more an ocean, on the floor. "Yeah, it's my _life long dream_ to have these feelings for a girl who claims to hate me then kisses me on more than one occasion!"

She… she sounded like me, the bitter mockery in her voice, the humourless laugh that followed... It almost scared me, but infuriated me also. I wanted to call her out on the 'feelings' she alleged and to humiliate her for them, I just wanted to do something Jade West was supposed to do in a situation like this, but she has a way of bringing out the parts of me I'd buried from the public long ago, all without my permission.

"You think I want these feelings?" I asked with a bite of anger in my words. But I hung my head, staring determinedly at the floor, knowing that if I looked directly at her I'd shatter in mere seconds. "You think I _like_ having my head fucked with ever since you came along? You think I _choose_ to feel a- a happy little bubble whenever you smile! Or- or to have to hold back my jealousy whenever some sleaze of a guy gets near you!"

_Fuck! Shit!_ Where'd that come from! I almost clasped a hand to my mouth in shock at my own words. I didn't even realise that's how I felt until the words spewed uncontrollably from me, like they were locked away in my subconscious, just waiting for the worst time to come out. Not the best, the worst. I knew it was true though; Ryder, Steven, even just the knowledge that that Danny had dated Vega made my blood boil with what I know realised was envy, I'd used taunting and teasing to mask the small gap it left and _shit! _Why! How did I not know all this before now?

Vega was gaping at me; jaw slacked in shock, at a complete loss for words. Evidently she'd expected those words to come out of my mouth just as much as I had. She tried to speak, but only succeeded in doing an impersonation of a lost goldfish, her mouth popping closed then falling open again; you could almost heard the words struggling to form. It would've been funny in any other situation. But I was first to recover; reflex.

"Shut your mouth, Vega. You look stupid."

She promptly did as told, then visibly swallowed. I was on edge now; I needed a reaction, a slap, a kiss, _anything _but this strained silence between us, making me feel even more uncomfortable than before.

"Say something." I pleaded quietly.

Tori wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing at her forearm in discomfort as she watched a spot near my shoes. "I guess- I guess that's how I felt whenever I see, uh, _saw_ you with Beck." She said in a hushed tone, a realisation more to herself than I, but it didn't stop my reflex responding.

"Only because you want him." I spat, noticing the slight jealous edge to my voice. "He's free now, Vega. Why don't you go follow him around with those giggling fan girls of his?"

To my surprise, she laughed. Not a cold, hard laugh, but a little titter, a small smirk pulling at the corners of her lips. "Why does everyone think that!" She said, sounding amused. "Honestly, Jade, I was _never_ after Beck. Never. Yeah, he's good looking, and maybe I did fancy him a little at first-" I bit my tongue at the comment. "But I don't like him like that. He's just a friend to me, nothing more. Why don't you believe that?"

She was sincere, and I couldn't help _but_ believe her. The look in her eyes, the slight slump of defeat in her stature; I knew she was telling the truth. I chewed the inside of my cheek, Beck was- _had been_- my rock, I had been scared of losing that, so lashed out at any possible threat. It was obvious to anyone that I thought Vega was that threat and I thought she was trying to take Beck away from me. It was almost laughable that, in some small, twisted way, she'd succeeded. Just not in the way I'd expected. It wasn't like I'd left Beck for her, but these fucked up feelings sure helped along the way.

"Jade." Tori sighed, taking a step forward to lay a hand on my arm and ducking to look into my eyes. I lifted my head a little to see the soft, chocolate brown staring back at me, making my heart leap to my throat. There were so many emotions displayed in those eyes: confusion, sadness, comfort, need… a whole range I could tell were reflected back in the cold, pale green that was my own eyes.

I didn't shrug her off, instead, I relaxed a little in my tight, defensive stance, the warmth of her fingers blistering my skin with goose bumps.

"You can't fight this, Jade." Her tone was gentle, understanding. "It won't work. I know you feel it to, and it's eating away at you. So _stop trying_ to fight it. I didn't want to feel like this either, but it's not like we have a choice in the matter of who we have feelings for. But, we do have a choice about what we do about those feelings."

Maybe I'd been staring at her mouth the entire time she spoke, and the next thing I knew, she had shifted closer so her lips were pressed softly to mine. Even behind the tenderness, I could feel all the want, need and desire, the hunger that Tori Vega felt for me. It was almost inevitable that I'd respond with equal amounts of those feelings and for a few moments everything melted away. I forgot that we were in a janitors' closet in the middle of an empty school, I forgot that I'd broken up with my boyfriend just the night before, I forgot that I didn't want these feelings in the first place, because, in those moments, this all felt so good and right, like it was meant to be. But the bliss didn't last long as something crawled from the back of my mind, reminding me of all these things, putting a stop to something I really wanted because, and I hated to admit it, I was scared. Jade West was scared. Of what, I wasn't too sure. Maybe it was the mess these feelings were creating in my head, or the fact that the reputation built up for me, the one of the girl with a stone heart, the girl who hated Tori Vega's guts, was crashing down around me, all because of said girl.

"I can't do this." I muttered against Vega's lips, not wanting to pull away.

But she removed her mouth completely, resting her forehead against mine as she nodded. "I knew you'd say that."

The disappointment in her voice cut me deep. Tori stepped back, I felt a chill fall over me where there used to be her warmth, and she looked up at me with sad eyes that made my heart break and I wished I hadn't said what I said, that I'd just stayed kissing her until, I don't know! Until time stopped and everything fixed itself and I wouldn't feel so stupid about these feelings… man, I was getting cheesy!

I shoved my hands in my pockets, head bowed, and I heard Vega huff again, but I couldn't look up at her. She shuffled backwards towards the door; I could feel her eyes still on me as she made to leave.

"I'll see you around, Jade."

"Wait!" I blurted out suddenly, snapping my head up to look at her for the first time. She had her hand on the handle, already half way out the door, a cheerless smile on her lips. I didn't want her to leave, but I didn't know what else to say, so I stood there awkwardly, hoping she'd say something first. She did.

"I'm not going to play games, Jade. I'll let you figure this out, then talk to me."

Then I was alone.

Xxx

I was awoken at 9am the next morning by a chirpy yapping outside of my door, followed by some yelling, a bang, and then silence. I groaned and shoved my pillow over my head, not even having to get up to know exactly what had happened: my step moms latest little Chihuahua mutt, who was yet to be toilet trained, must've made yet another mess on the floor last night, which my father must have stepped in once again, probably in his socks. I sniggered against the mattress at the mental image that conjured, my dad's beet red face as he peeled his fresh, once clean socks from his feet, his nose screwed up in disgust at the dog poop caught in the wool. Well, I wasn't going downstairs for a while.

I knew I wasn't going to get back to sleep either, so I lay face down in my bed for a while, just trying to relax and not let the memory of yesterday creep back into my mind, I didn't want to think about Vega or how she left me alone in a closet consumed with a mixture of unwanted feelings. Urg, too late, the sadden look she wore when I told her I couldn't do this was pretty much permanently ingrained in my mind now. It kept waking me up during the night along with the feeling of guilt and like something was missing. It was times like these I wished I had something to hold onto, to give me comfort. I couldn't even have that with Beck; something always held me back from letting him see my more vulnerable side, the side that needed a hug every so often to make me feel better.

I rolled over onto my back and slammed my fists against the mattress; this is exactly what I didn't want to think about, it made me feel nauseous. I needed a distraction, so I kicked the covers off, hopped out of bed and began pacing around my room, chucking on the first clothes that came to hand: a large, black hoodie, ripped jeans, and a pair of boots. The clothes I'd borrowed from Vega still sat on my dresser and I needed to return them at some point, but for now I just left them, pulling a brush quickly through my hair, applying a little make up, then grabbed my phone and PearPod and left my room in a hurry, keen to avoid any interaction with my family.

"JADE!" My father roared just as I got to the front door, about to stick my keys in the lock. I span around on my heel to come face to face with him looking furious, the precise shade of crimson I imagine he'd turn. In one of my hands he put a twenty dollar bill- a bribe- and a couple of plastic bags. In the other. a dog lead. It was only then that I noticed the tiny little _thing_ that sat on the floor beside his bare feet. "If you're going out, you're taking the dog for a walk."

"What!" I began to protest, but he cut me off.

"You're taking the dog for a walk." He said slowly, like I was dumb. I hated when he spoke to me like that, but I gritted my teeth and stormed out the door, dragging the dog along with me.

Have I mentioned that I hate dogs? This yapping ball of fur was definitely no exception. It bounded along ahead of me, stopping every five seconds to sniff something or bark at something, the only upside was that it was, in fact, providing a good distraction… stupid mutt. The fresh air was helping clear my mind and the music thumping loudly in my ears drowned out any other sound around me. I wore my hood up, mainly to avoid contact with any other human that may walk by, but also because there was dampness in the air, a sign that the rain Andre had mentioned was indeed threatening to pour soon.

I walked around the block, down the little paths I'd take on my frequent walks and wandered aimlessly around the woods not too far from my house. Like the janitors closet, it was my place of peace, where I'd escape to whenever father and I were having one of our many arguments about how I was wasting my life. I'd take a sketch pad or a notebook and just sit up in a tree, drawing and writing. I couldn't do that now, not with yapping McGee with me. Don't ask why I'd suddenly named the dog that, I'm sure it had a name already, some cutesy name that would make me want to puke, but for now it was Yapping McGee.

I didn't notice how long I'd been walking for until I felt my phone buzz twice in a row. One text from father telling me to get back _now_, because his new wife wanted her precious pooch back, to which I responded with a simple 'Coming back now', the other from Andre saying the gang were about to head over to Vegas and asking if I still wanted to come along. Against my better judgement, I said yes, then began to head back to my house with the rain starting to drip lightly from above.

Xxx

I arrived at Vega's an hour later than everyone else. I'd stopped to have a shower, attempting to delay myself, then got caught up by my dad asking questions about where I was going and what I was doing. Apparently, 'going to a friend's house' isn't a good enough answer, even when it's the truth.

I hesitated outside her door, planning to knock, but instead I tired the handle to find it, as usual, unlocked. I flung the door open and barged in, slightly soggy from the spit of rain, and startled everyone who was already inside. Once over the initial shock, Cat jumped up to greet me with a hug and the others all mumbled their welcomes, each turning back to their activity as they did. Vega didn't look too pleased about my sudden entrance, but she'd get over it.

"So, what are we doing?" I asked, dropping onto the sofa beside the nerd and his puppet, much to their displeasure… and mine.

"Just hangin'" Andre replied, tinkling the keys of the large piano in the corner.

"Just hanging?" I repeated, raising an eyebrow. "What, we're just gonna stay at Vega's all day?"

"_You _don't have to stay, if you don't want to, Jade." Tori said, a little bitterly, as she passed Beck and Cat some pink lemonade each.

"Whatever." I said, getting up from my seat. A flash of panic crossed Tori's face, probably thinking that I really was going to leave, but I didn't. Instead I snatched a pair of scissors from a drawer, sat down at the at the kitchen table and began to carve into one of the apples I'd taken from the fruit bowl. I didn't feel like socialising with them today, I didn't even know why I'd agreed to come here, but I might as well do something now that I was.

The day actually turned out to be pretty good. Andre, Robbie and Beck started work on a song not long after I got there and soon Cat, Vega and I joined in to help. It wasn't like the food song we did for that we did for that kids party, but a sappy little love song that Andre had written before and insisted on reworking. Everyone was having fun and, now that I was being honest with myself about it, seeing the playful look on Tori's face as she messed around with Robbie's guitar made me grin from ear to ear, not that I let anyone see. She wouldn't talk to me much, though, and seemed to stay away from me as much as she could manage without it looking suspicious.

Maybe those four simple words I'd said in the closet hurt her more than I realised.

It soon turned late afternoon. The rain was chucking it down outside by now and the novelty of song writing was wearing off now that the serious musician inside Andre was determined to make it into an absolute masterpiece. Beck and Robbie stayed with him; the nerd strumming chords on his guitar while my ex- I was still getting used to that- fiddled with the bass his parents got him for his last birthday. We girls were crashed out on the couch, watching some random film that none of us were paying attention to, until Cat jumped up with a squeal.

"Tori, Jade. Will you accompany me to Tori's room?" The red head asked, grabbing both of out hands and dragging us towards the stairs before either of us could answer.

"Er, _why,_ Cat?" Vega asked, casted a look for help over at the boys who all just shrugged in response.

"Because I need to talk to you!" Cat giggled, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

I've got to say, she was strong for such a petite girl, and soon me and Vega found ourselves being thrown into the half-Latina's bedroom against our will, the door closed too behind us that Cat leant against, preventing us from trying to escape. She folded her arms and gave the two of us a serious look that didn't often appear on her face.

"What's going on between you two?"

"I don't know what you mean." Tori stammered quickly, looking anywhere else but Cat and I.

"Tori." Cat dragged out her name as she sighed. "I know you two like each other, and I know you both know that too. So, what're you going to do about it?"

Why did she have to get straight to the point? Why couldn't she leave me and Vega to work this out for ourselves? I felt like a little school kid on the playground, getting teased by the others in their class for liking someone.

"Shut it, Cat." I hissed.

She shrugged. "Sooner or later, you're both going to have to stop tip toeing around each other and work this out once and for all." She smiled sympathetically. "I just want you two to be happy!"

Before either of us could comment on this, there was a knock at the door, and I've honestly never been more relived to hear Robbie Shapiro's voice.

"Are you girls okay in there?"

"We're fine!" Tori called back. "We'll be down in a minute!"

"Man, I told you not to knock! You never know what they could be doing in there! Three single girls, alone, in a bedroom-"

"Rex!" Robbie spluttered, followed by the sound of his footsteps moving away from the door and the quiet scolding he was giving his puppet for his suggestion.

Cat laughed. "We better go back downstairs before Rex starts making up stuff about what happened in here."

We nodded in agreement. Cat opened the door and left the room, Tori about to follow, but I grabbed her arm, stopping her.

"Vega, wait." I said. She turned around to look at me for the first time that day and I suddenly felt a wave of nerves hit me. "Look, Cat's right. We do need to sort this out. It's awkward and weird, and I just want things to be relatively normal."

She raised an eyebrow at this. "And how do you propose we sort this out, Jade? Because, I don't know about you, but I can't just turn off my feelings so things can be 'normal' again." She said, highlighting the word 'normal' with air quotes.

"I'm not asking for that." I sighed, running a hand though my hair, the butterflies in my stomach doubling. I never thought I'd say what I was about to say. "I think, maybe… maybe we should give this a chance. So… so, how would you like to go out tomorrow, just you and me… so, we can talk?"

Vega's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "What… you mean like, like a _date_?"

I shrugged. "I suppose…maybe?" Oh God, what was wrong with me? Did I really just ask Vega out on a date? This was getting beyond the realms of weird, but for some reason, like everything else that had happened with her lately, it felt right.

"Uh, yeah, okay then." Tori replied, taken aback, but smiling nonetheless. I couldn't help but smile too.

"Cool. So, um, pick you up at 7 tomorrow?"

"Sure" She squeaked, still in shock, just like me.

"Cool" I repeated, shuffling my feet awkwardly. "You know, this isn't like me, so you better appreciate this." I added, trying to get some sense of normality back in.

"I do." She said softly, then, to my surprise, planted a kiss on my cheek. "Thank you, Jade."

"Uh, yeah. No problem."

Thankfully, Cat appeared back at the door, interrupting the uncomfortable moment.

"Are you two coming back downstairs or what?"

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Ooo, a date! Haha! Even I wasn't expecting that. I've honestly just sat here for the past, God knows how many hours, just typing and seeing what came from it. Also, 2 am seems to have become a regular time for me to update... So, if this is really bad, I apologise.**

**Anyway, loads more thank you's for the reviews and everything! They help keep me motivated to write this fic and they really do mean a lot. Of course, more is always welcome ;) I love to hear your opinions =)**


	14. Chapter 14

4:30pm... 2 and a half hours before the big _date_ with Jade… and I was getting cold feet. Should I really be doing this? What if she stands me up? What if it's all just a game to her? I was ready to lay all my feelings out bare for her to see while she still tried to hide. But I was hopefully; too hopeful to prepare myself for any heartbreak that could come from this.

Or maybe I was thinking too much into it again.

I sighed and threw myself back onto my bed for the umpteenth time, feeling the bubbling of worry in the pit of my stomach which _really_ didn't help. I'd been sat on the edge of my bed for the past ten minutes, fiddling with my phone, switching between two numbers in my contacts as I contemplated who to call, if anyone at all. The nerves of just the thought of going out somewhere with Jade alone were getting the better of me, no matter how much I wanted this, and her number stayed highlighted on the screen the longest while I tried to decide whether or not I should call the whole thing off, tell her I was sick and couldn't make it.

The second number was Cat's. She was the only person who knew about me and Jade, and therefore was the only person I could go to for advice. She'd also known Jade the longest and the best out of everyone, which was definitely a bonus.

I finally picked a number and my thumb hovered over the call button before I quickly pressed it and put the pear shaped cell up to my ear, listening to it ring as I waited for the girl to answer. I bit my lip, counting the rings; God, I've never been this nervous in my life.

"Tori!"

I almost jumped when Cat's high pitched squeal sounded at the end of the receiver. Taking a second to get my breathing back right, I swallowed.

"Hey Cat!" I said with false cheeriness, hoping she wouldn't see through it. "How's it going?"

"Good." She said, sounding distracted. "I just had to stop my brother giving a kitten a haircut. I think the kitty's okay now, but it's got little patches of hair missing…"

Cat trailed off and I just knew she was stroking said kitten that was probably curled in her lap. I smiled despite myself.

"So, looking forward to your date tonight!" Cat came back, her voice full of excitement.

I spluttered. "I- what- how did you-"

"I was waiting for you two outside your door when Jade asked." The red head said with a giggle. I rolled my eyes; should've known. "Sooo! Are you excited? Where's she taking you?"

The fact that Cat was talking to me like this was any other date started to put my mind at ease, until I realised I had _no _idea where we were going tonight, just that Jade said she'd pick me up at 7.

"Uh." I ran a hand through my hair as Cat waiting patiently for an answer. "Actually, I'm kind of nervous and I don't know where we're going either."

There was a laugh from the end of the phone and a lot of shifting that sounded like Cat had rolled onto her back. This was followed by a small meow.

"Aww! I'm sorry kitty! Come back!" Cat called; I heard her rolled back over and scrabble across the floor, obviously in search of the near bald kitten. "Ow! Bad kitty! You hurt my finger!"

I could practically hear her pouting and the image of a small, patchy kitten gazing up fearfully at a sad Cat who was sucking on her hurt finger flashed up in my mind. I smiled at the image, but this was majorly diverting from the reason for the phone call.

"Cat, can we get back on track?" I asked, hoping I wouldn't offend the girl.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, Tori!" Cat giggled again; this time a heard her shuffle around and the squeak of springs as she crawled onto her bed. "Anyway, you'll be fine!"

"Are you sure about that?" I asked with a nervous laugh. "How do you this isn't just some big plot to kill me and dump my body for no one to find?" Yeah, that thought had crossed my mind numerous times.

"Tori" Her tone was exasperated, and she turned from bubbly, happy Cat to serious Cat in a matter of seconds. "Jade's not trying to kill you, okay? Whatever's happened in the past is her just defending herself against things and feelings she doesn't understand."

She paused and I had to pull my phone away from my ear to check it was still Cat's number I'd dialled, or see if there was some screw up in signals and I was talking to someone else; this didn't sound like the Cat Valentine I knew at all.

"Tori? Are you still there?" Okay, that definitely sounded like Cat.

I put the phone to my opposite ear. "Yeah, sorry. Continue?"

"She really likes you, Tori." The red head said, willing me to understand. "_Really_ likes you. She may still being trying to work that out herself, but I can tell."

"How can you tell?" I asked quietly.

I think she shrugged. "Isn't it obvious?"

"Uh, no!"

She sighed. "Look, Tori, just stop asking questions and go with the flow." I couldn't help but laugh at that. "And stop stalling! You've got a date in almost two hours, and I know it'll take you forever to find an outfit you want to wear."

"How do you know that?" I defended with humour.

"Same way I know that Jade really likes you, I just do! Now, go! Get ready for your big date! And make sure you at least call me afterwards to tell me how it goes, if Jade doesn't beat you to it!"

I shook my head. "Alright, Cat. And thanks, you really made me feel a lot better."

"That's okay!" Her cheery tone was back. "See you Tori!"

"See ya!"

Xxx

I hate to admit it, but Cat was right, it took me a good hour to find an outfit I wanted to wear to meet with Jade. Pieces of clothing now lay littered across my bedroom where I'd taken one glance at them and thrown them over my shoulder in an attempt to search for something just right. But I didn't know what 'just right' was, so, after pretty much emptying my entire wardrobe over the floor I opted for something simple and everyday that hopefully said I wasn't making a big deal out of this and that it was just a casual, uh, date… with a girl that's supposed to hate me.

I stood in front of my full length mirror adjusting the clothes I'd chosen so everything was perfect: black boots, black, slightly faded skinny jeans, a dark purple, off the shoulder shirt… I still wasn't entirely happy, but it'll have to do. I collapsed into my desk chair, glancing up at the mirror before searching the table top for all of the make up pots that sat there, trying to decided which was best: a lot of make up? No make up at all? No, Tori, you're going for casual, remember? You don't want Jade to think you're trying too hard. Ug, why can't I have someone do this for me?

As if on cue, my bedroom door was flung open and in barged Trina waving _my_ toothbrush around in the air and squeezing a tube of toothpaste in the other hand; thankfully the lid was still on.

"Tori! I dropped my toothbrush and didn't want to use it after it had been on the gross floor, so I borrowed yours. I hope you don't-" She was cut off when her foot caught a pair of jeans I'd left on the floor causing her to stumble and my toothbrush to fly out of her hand, narrowly avoiding my face as it clattered onto the desk behind me. "What happened here! It looks like someone set a bomb off in your wardrobe!"

I gingerly picked up my toothbrush that was now covered in Trina's mouth germs and tossed it back at her. "Trina, I'm kind of busy right now." I said, turning back to my mirror and watching her reflection as she studied the clothing on my floor, probably picking stuff out for herself. "You can keep the toothbrush, by the way, but you're buying me a new one."

"Oooh!" I should've known she wouldn't leave. Trina came skipping over to me and rested her chin on my shoulder, gazing at herself in the mirror. "What are you busy with, Tori? Anything I should know about?" She teased then gasped overdramatically. "Are you going on a date!"

I wasn't planning on telling her, but this is Trina, and she has a way of finding out whenever I go on a date. She was hiding in the house when Ryder came over, and she was always hanging around whenever Steven was here, and those were only the most recent, so it was only a matter of time before she found out about this. It was like she had a sixth sense for it. Of course, I wasn't going to tell her who it was with, what was I supposed to say? 'Oh, you know, I may be crushing on Jade and we're going out to try to sort things out and I kinda, possibly am hoping to get something more than friendship out of this. Oh, yeah, and she's a girl.'… that even sounded stupid in my head, Trina would never be able to get a grip on it.

"So, who's the lucky guy so I can introduce myself and he'll see what he's missing out on!" My sister asked. I rolled my eyes.

"It's, um, someone you don't know. And it's not really a date; we're just kind of meeting up." I tried to say nonchalantly, knowing that wouldn't work, but it was worth a try.

"Awww, is little Tori embarrassed about her date?" Trina cooed, smirking at me over my shoulder. "Come on, they can't be _that _bad… unless it's that Sinjin kid. It's not that Sinjin kid, is it?"

I laughed a little. "No, Trina it's not Sinjin."

"Oh, good!" She actually looked relieved. "You had me worried there for a second."

"Trina, not that I don't want you here, but can you leave?" I asked, starting to feel irritated by my sisters' presence. Honestly, all I wanted was some peace and I really wasn't ready to tell her anything about me and Jade when I was still fuzzy on the details myself.

"Aww, come on, Tori!" She drew out my name in a whiny plea. "You can tell your older, prettier, better sister all about this mystery man of yours!" Suddenly, she gasped again, a look of gleeful realisation on her face. "Oh my God! Is it Beck! Are you going on a date with Beck? Jade will _kill _you when she finds out!"

"TRINA!" I yelled over her rambling, tempted to hit her over the head with the theatre history book beside me. "It's not Beck! It's not even a guy- a… a guy you know, I mean." I stammered over my slip up, hoping she wouldn't notice. Thankfully, Trina just sighed in defeat.

"Fine!" She huffed "You're just worried he'll take one look at your _fantastic _sister and fall head over heels for me instead!-"

"Believe me, that's the _last _thing I'm worried about." I muttered under my breath.

"But, I will find out who he is." Trina attempted to threaten as she backed out of the room. "Mark my words, baby sis. I _will _find out."

Xxx

Five to seven. I don't usually curse, but oh _fuck_, was I nervous! It wasn't just nerves, though; I was kind of excited too, thinking about the possibility of where this could lead, if it all went right. But if it all went wrong…

I'd tried to sit down on the couch and wait comfortably for Jade to arrive, but I couldn't keep still, I was just overflowing with nervous energy that I needed to get rid of. I automatically started pacing up and down in front of the tv, wringing my hands, looking up at the clock every five seconds to watch the time pass, just waiting. As I glanced up to see the bigger hand tick- four minutes to seven- something caught my eye. A high heeled, _nosey_ something who was trying to hide under the kitchen table while watching me.

"TRINA!" I shouted, storming over to where she crouched.

Trina jumped, smacking her head on the underside of the table as she did. "OW! TORI! Look what you made me do!" She cried, pushing chairs out of the way as she crawled to her feet.

"Serves you right for spying on me!" I retaliated.

"Am I bleeding?" She moaned, patting her head then checking her hand for blood.

"Who cares! Just… just go upstairs and out of my way!" I shrieked, pointing to the stairs.

Thankfully, she did as I said, not without a _lot _of complaining about possible concussion. I looked up at the clock again to see it tick: one minute to. Well, at least Trina had distracted me from my worry, but that all came flooding back as the sound of the doorbell rang through the house. Tripping over my own feet in my hast, I practically threw the door open to reveal a slightly stunned Jade, who raised her brows at me, her hand hovering in the air where she was still slowly withdrawing it from the bell.

"Someone's in a rush." She stated as I slammed the door closed behind me, hoping Trina wouldn't come running back downstairs.

"My sister's hanging around." I replied. "I don't really- She wouldn't under- Can we just go?" I stumbled through, feeling awkwardly embarrassed now.

Jade nodded and lead me silently into her car. She was wearing black, slightly flared jeans, a silver studded belt glinting out from under a plaid shirt that covered a black tank top. Good, she'd gone for casual too. That was good, right? I suppose it's better than me going casual and her dressing up all smart and sophisticated… Okay, Tori, you've really got to stop over thinking things.

"So, where are we headed?" I asked, forcing my voice calm.

"Just a little restaurant I know." Jade replied. We were already on the road and driving away from my house, there was no turning back now. "It's kinda out of the way, so you don't have to worry about us running into anyone we know."

"I, uh, I wasn't worried-" I spluttered, but she interrupted.

"It's okay, I understand. This is weird for me too, you know."

"Right." I said quietly, sinking back into the car seat as I tried to relax.

Most of the car journey was silent, a surprisingly comfortable silence. Jade was considerably a better driver than Trina, until she took an unexpected swerve, slamming me against the passenger side door.

"Sorry." She said genuinely, glancing over at me before squinting into the rear-view mirror. "I had to. I think someone's tailing us. I've seen the same car at least five times already." I clambered round to peer over my seat at the car behind. "No, not that one. I lost it when I swerved."

"Oh, good." I said, relieved. Why would someone be following us? It must just be a coincidence.

We arrived at the restaurant without anymore random turnings or bruised arms. It was a small, quaint place tucked away on the outskirts of town, the sort of place I'd never been to before with anyone and I couldn't hide my surprise when we pulled up; I hadn't expected Jade to take me to anywhere like this. The tattooed girl smirked at my reaction and stepped out, throwing and catching her keys in one hand as she walked around the front of the car. I went to follow, but before I'd even put my hand on the handle, Jade had opened the door for me, holding out a hand which I took without question.

"Thanks." I said, slightly stunned, even more so when I received a smile in return and, as I went to let go, Jade just laced our fingers together, tugging me towards the place.

I looked down at our entwined hands, then back up at Jade, who shrugged, still smiling. Wow, this is not what I envisioned, at all, although all my thoughts had involved either a sullen, sulky Jade who didn't really want anything to do with me...or a body bag. She even seemed a bit befuddled by her own behaviour as well, but neither of us wanted to let go, so we walked to the entrance hand in hand, Jade even holding the door open for me again as we went in.

The place was small and cosy, a few people sat at the round tables dotted here and there, enough to be busy, but nothing too bad. A kindly, old woman showed us to our seats the minute we stepped in; flashing us what looked like an approving smile when she noticed our joined hands. Jade sat across from me in the small, corner booth, complete with dark red, velvet seats as the woman came back with a couple of menus and took our drink order.

"No bolognaise for you." She winked, and I shook my head with a smile, surprised by how comfortable I was feeling.

"Yeah, yeah, and no shrimp for you." I said, opening the menu then closing it almost immediately in shock. "Jade!" I hissed, leaning over as the waitress made her way back "The prices!"

"My treat." She replied, taking her drink with a nod of thanks, dismissing the lady as we weren't ready to order.

"Okay." I said slowly as I sat back in my seat, putting the menu down and crossing my arms, eyebrow raised. This was too weird. "Who are you and what have you done with Jade West?"

She rolled her eyes, leaning forward over the table with her fingers clasped together in front of her. "Tori, look." She said seriously, taking a deep breath in. "I… I'm trying to make things up to you." Jade paused and ran a hand through her hair. "I did a lot of thinking last night and I realised that _maybe_ I haven't been the kindest person to you."

I scoffed; I couldn't help myself. That was a bit of an understatement.

"Alright, so I've been a total gank to you ever since I've known you. But, I dunno-" She sighed. By the sound of it Jade had been planning what to say all last night, but just couldn't put it into words. "All this, whatever, that's going on between us, I think, maybe that's why I was like that, because I was in denial about it… or something." She shook her head and gave a soft laugh. "That's what Cat's been telling me anyway, and I guess she's right."

"She's pretty clever, isn't she?" I said, grinning despite myself.

"Yeah, that she is. I wouldn't even be here without her; I almost didn't come to pick you up." I frowned at this. "I called her before I came out, you know, this whole denial thing was acting up." Jade waved a hand dismissively.

"You and I both." I admitted, to which she laughed.

"Yeah, so." She sat back up straight again and began browsing the menu. "Just sit there, smile and roll with it. That's what I'm doing. Make this as normal as possible."

I nodded just as the waitress came back with her notepad and I made sure to order the least expensive thing on the menu, feeling guilty about having Jade pay for it all. It didn't take long for our meals to arrive and, by that time, we'd fallen into a comfortable conversation about school, our common ground, and the latest projects we had to work on. Jade was nice, kind of polite, but had to make a snide comment here and there- "Well, I haven't changed, I'm just being a bit nicer" She'd defended.

This continued as we ate, but the longer we were there, the more Jade seemed to get distracted by something over my shoulder, squinting at whatever it was like she had done to the car that was tailing us before.

"What is it?" I asked, attempting to sneak a peek over my shoulder at whatever it was. A woman sat in the booth behind us, her face partly covered by the menu she was reading, but, as I watched, she shooed the waitress away when she came over to take an order.

"She looks sort of familiar, don't you think?" Jade asked quietly. I turned back to face her, frowning. The woman did look pretty familiar. "I think she was the one following us in the car."

"Really?" I chanced a glance back at the woman who looked up just as I did, freezing in the action of lowering the menu… oh my God.

"Trina!" I shrieked, jumping up from my seat, immediately followed by Jade and my sister, who, now I could really see, had only done her make up differently and puffed her hair up so it was bigger in what looked like a lame attempt at disguise. I would've wondered how she had the time to do such things between banging her head on the table and me getting into Jades car, but I knew she kept who knows how many make up and hair styling products in her car and had a habit of not keeping her eyes on the road.

"Uh, Tori!" She said in a fake tone of surprise. "Didn't expect to see you here!"

"Cut the crap, Vega." Jade barged forward, slipping back into the Jade I knew well, rather than the sweet, nice one I'd been chatting to just moments before. "You're spying on us."

Trina took a little step back, cowering under Jades accusing glare. We were already attracting some looks, so I hurried forward and stepped between them, although I faced my sister with a similar stare. I opened my mouth to say something, but Trina spoke first.

"Wait, _us_?" She asked, gawping from me to Jade and back again. "Tori, _this _is you _date_!"

"_This!_" Jade repeated through gritted teeth, raising her fist as she tried to push past me, but I held her back.

"I thought you were both waiting for your dates. But-" Trina continued, her brow furrowed as she pointed between the two of us. "You two? _Really_?"

"Trina, just go home." I pleaded quietly, a hint of desperation in my voice. Only my sister would do something like this to attempt to steal my date, which was no doubt what she was planning, up until she found out who it was. I knew she wouldn't understand. "I'll explain later, but could you please just leave us alone!"

She was about to protest, but Jade made a noise akin to a growl which Trina jumped at before nodding and practically fleeing the building, still with a look of utter shock on her face. I sighed as I collapsed back in my seat, head dropping into my hands in despair. Jade sat beside me and patted my back in an awkward, yet comforting way, although I could tell she was pretty pissed off.

"I'm so sorry." I said, sitting back up. I knew this was going too good to be true, trust it to be Trina to ruin it.

"Don't worry about it. I'm used to bratty, nosey siblings." The taller girl muttered. "Forget it. Let's finish up here and then I'll take you home and we can kill her."

I made a noise of agreement as I sipped my drink. "I might just do that."

Xxx

An hour later we pulled into my drive way. With the Trina incident pushed to the back of our minds, we managed to get everything back on track, our conversation now changing from school to our families. I'd learnt a lot about Jade tonight from things like her parents being divorced because her 'father screwed around with some bitch behind mom's back, got her pregnant then dropped irritating brat of a half-sister into my life' to little things like she ate her food in a specific order around the plate and wiped her mouth with her napkin both before and after she had a drink, habits she'd had since she was younger, so she told me when I was caught staring at her doing so. I think she learnt some stuff about my family life too, particularly about Trina, as the two of us spent about ten minutes ranting about how much of a pain she can be. Although, I did defend her in some cases, after all, she is my sister, and she's not _all _bad.

"Well, thank you for tonight." I said when we came to a stop outside my house and I undid my seatbelt. "It was… nice. Different, but nice… for lack of a better word." I added.

"Nice is good." Jade shrugged "Would you like a hand murdering your sister?"

"Would you like to explain to my parents why we're murdering her?" I asked with a laugh.

"Good point." Jade smiled, but there was an awkward presence now, both of us knowing we had to say goodbye, but how?

"Well then" I said, fumbling with the door handle. "See you at school tomorrow?"

"Yeah…"

I nodded, going to opened the door, but Jade placed a hand on my knee, stopping me instantly.

"Wait, Ve- Tori." She'd been doing that all evening, going to use my last name then changing part way though. I think it was part of her plan to be nice to me, but, as she said, calling me 'Vega' was habit. I'd told her I didn't mind, but she insisted. "This stays between me and you, for now, at least. Okay?"

I nodded. "And Cat and Trina, I guess."

"Them too." Jade rolled her eyes. There was a slightly tense moment where neither of us spoke or moved, until Jade shifted round in her seat to face me full on. "I had a nice night."

"Me too." I said, letting go of the door handle to turn to her.

"Maybe we could do it again sometime? You're paying, though" She grinned.

"Oh, nice, invite me on a date then make me pay!" I joked, my smile faltering a little when I realised what I'd said. "Uh, not that you invited me on a date or-"

"Tori." Jade interrupted, smiling at me. "Call it a date if you want, I don't care. By definition, I would say it is."

I laughed a little in relief.

"I should probably be going now." I said reluctantly, jerking my thumb in the direction of my house.

"Oh, yeah, sure. But wait just a moment." I looked at Jade in confusion as she undid her own seat and shimmied around, closing the distance between us to capture my lips in a fleeting kiss that made my heart skip a beat as it leapt in my chest. She pulled back with a smirk, buckling her seatbelt up again. "Now get out before I make you."

"I'm out!" I said, jumping down to the drive way, beaming. "G'night!"

"Whatever." She replied, a smile still breaking her face, before I slammed the door too and made my way up to the house, Jade driving off behind me.

I got inside, expecting to find Trina waiting for me, but she wasn't there. This made me partly relieved, yet also concerned; where'd she go after she left the restaurant? I wandered slowly upstairs to my bedroom, looking around for any sign that my sister may suddenly just out at me from somewhere, but by the time I got to my room, there was still no sign of her. Weird. I opened my door and flicked the switch on, by now expecting to see her perched on my bed waiting to have a serious talk with me about what I'd been up to, however, in the place I thought she'd be sat a folded note with my name written on in her fancy handwriting, the 'i.' dotted with a little heart. Utterly baffled, I crossed the room in a few quick strides, flipping open the paper as I fell back onto my bed.

_Tori._

_I don't care what you are, who you're with or anything like that, just as long as you're happy. Remember that, okay? I'm your sister and I love you no matter what. And, I guess I'm sorry for following you, I probably shouldn't've done that._

_The only reason I'm writing_ _instead of telling you is because you take way too long to get home and I am _not _missing out on my vital beauty sleep just to have you explain things I probably won't understand._

_We'll talk about this properly some other time, okay? Just be careful, Tori, Jade's hurt you enough when she didn't even like you, I don't want to see you hurt. I'm your big sister just looking out for you._

_Good night, and lots of hugs and kisses- no homo._

_Trina._

I wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry at the handwritten note I held, but I knew I wanted to get it framed and hang it on my wall somewhere. The last note I'd received from my sister was a shopping list, so this certainly made a change.

Grinning from ear to ear, I changed into my night clothes and climbed into bed, drifting off into a peaceful, very happy slumber.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Okay, to be totally honest with you, I'm not 100% happy with how this on turned out, but, I'm afraid it's the best I'm going to come up with, I can't write dates. (Excuse:1)  
>I promise the next chapter will be better, and more planned, as these last two have sort of been spontaneous, random words that poured out of me while I sit in front of my laptop. (Excuse:2)<strong>

**Tell me what you think... if you don't like it, I'll make it up to you, I swear.**

**Cheese filled ending is cheesy. But it's 3am here, so wat'cha gunna do? =P (Excuse:3)**


	15. Chapter 15

**POV: Jade**

I was stood by my locker, meant to be picking out the books I needed for the day ahead but instead I was completely spaced out. I couldn't stop thinking over yesterday and my… _date_ with Ve- Tori. I don't really know what came over me, I knew I wasn't acting like I usually do, the cold, distant Jade that everyone puts up with. No, instead I completely let my guard down and let the girl in, something I'd even found difficult to do with Beck. Hell, I'd even held her hand walking into the place and kissed her goodbye!

Maybe I'm going insane. That would be a suitable explanation. Tori Vega is driving absolutely insane and… God dammit, I liked it! I _liked_ spending time with her, getting to know her, letting her get to know me. I liked her little giggle whenever I said something that wasn't even that funny and I _really _liked it when we came up with a fool proof plan to murder her annoyance of her sister in her sleep and where we'd bury the body… too bad she made me swear not to go through with it.

God, Jade, what's wrong with you! You're going soft because of the girl you're meant to hate! I may have to check myself into the mental ward at the hospital if this continues-

"Jade?"

I was brought out of my trance by a high pitched, timid voice and span around to come face to face with a head of red hair closely followed by my ex-boyfriend. I groaned. Beck and I hadn't been alone together since the break-up, there was always one or more of our little group hanging around at all times, as if they were afraid the world would implode if it was just the two of us for five seconds. I wasn't sure if it was a good or bad thing, though. I wanted things to be as normal as possible, which, come to think of it, isn't very normal at all, but everyone was going to have to get used to the fact that we weren't together anymore, Beck and I included. Of course, his following of little fan girls were _very_ used to the idea; I could see them over his shoulder, gazing at him like they'd just seen God. I may not be dating the guy anymore, but that doesn't mean I can't find them to be irritating little fucks.

"Jade?" Cat repeated.

I shook my head; I'd zoned out again. This is what happens when I don't get my coffee first thing in the morning.

"What?" I grunted, grabbing a book at random then slamming my locker shut, beginning to walk away from the two, who decided to follow me anyway. I rounded on them.

"We just came say hi." Cat said, her smile dropping, while Beck saluted at me in greeting.

That girl just- urg! "I haven't had coffee." I excused. Sorry wasn't a word in my vocabulary, or, at least, it wasn't used very often, but Cat and her pout always won me over somehow and got me as close to apologising as I could muster.

"Oh!" Cat brighten up again. "We should go get some!"

"Are you sure that's a good idea, Cat?" Beck asked as we followed the shorter girl towards the Grub Truck. "Remember what happened last time you drank coffee?"

Cat stopped in front of the truck, cocking her head to one side and frowned in concentration. Soon, a smirk played across her lips and her eyes glinted mischievously at the memory.

"That was fun!" The red head said gleefully, clapping her hands together. "But, I don't think Sikowitz liked it. He said cats aren't allowed to drink coffee and that I should stick to milk, or something that doesn't make me even more of a hyper bundle of crazy."

I smirked as I grabbed my coffee cup from Festus, remembering how Cat had been racing around the classroom, unable to sit still for no longer than a minute and how it took Sikowitz and the class more than half the lesson to calm her down enough to get some work done. I'd love to convince her to get a coffee just for the to happen again, but just as I opened my mouth to do so, my attention was caught by a pair of familiar sisters walking from the car park towards to doors of Hollywood Arts. My eyebrow arched as I watched them, chatting happily to each other; evidently Tori had forgiven Trina for what she'd done yesterday and I didn't understand why. She'd followed us, spied on us and shouted about us in the middle of a restaurant in front of so many people; I certainly wouldn't have forgiven her so soon.

"I'll see you guys in class." I said distractedly to Beck and Cat, stalking away from them before either had the chance to ask what I was doing, hot on the tail of the Vega girls.

I watched as they walked up to Tori's locker and the younger girl entered the combination while Trina yakked on about something in her ear. I managed to sneak past them without being seen and slipped silently around the corner, watching them both as I waited. Why couldn't they hate each other like me and my sister? It would make it so much easier for me to grab the girl I wanted to talk to instead of hiding until they shut up. Finally, I saw Tori slam her locker shut and move towards the stairs while Trina pranced over in my direct. Brilliant. The second she rounded the corner I whipped my arm out and snatched her wrist, just as I'd do to her sister, and dragged her into the janitors closet before she'd even had time to process what was going on.

"What! Jade!" She squealed as I closed the door quietly behind us after making sure no one had seen us go in.

"Aren't you the clever one." I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes as I lent against the door so she couldn't escape, sipping at my coffee indifferently.

"What do you want?" Trina asked. It was obvious that she wanted to get away from me and fast. "I've got to go or I'll be late for my singing class!"

"I'll be doing them a favour then." I smirked as she scowled and gave a sharp gasp of offence.

Trina crossed her arm and raised an eyebrow in question making her resemblance to Tori so suddenly striking that it actually caught me off guard for a second. I blinked, remembering who I was with, why I was here and that I wanted to get it over with as fast as I could, with or without Trina breathing by the end of it.

"Why were you following us?" I questioned.

She dropped her arms to her sides. "It was a coinciden-"

"Don't bullshit me, Vega." I cut her off "You were following us. Why?"

She sighed. "Fine. Tori wouldn't tell me who her date was and I wanted to know, so I followed her."

I shook my head in despair. "That I can believe. Now, have you told anyone?"

"No!" She said defensively. "I wouldn't-"

"Yeah, you would." I countered.

"Fine. But, I haven't told anyone, I swear."

"Good." I said, taking a step towards her which she immediately took a step back from, crashing into the trash can behind her as she did. I smirked, dumping my now empty coffee cup in to said trash can and reaching to my side to snatch up a pair of scissors, twirling them around my fingers. "And you won't be telling anyone, will you?"

It wasn't a request, it was a demand; Trina's eyes were focused fully on the sharp instrument in my hand as she gulped and nodded her head. Some part of me knew there was no need to threaten the older Vega about this, I knew she loved her sister and wouldn't do something as stupid as tell the whole school she'd been on a date with the big, bad Jade West, but I had to be sure. Trina didn't like me and I didn't like her, any kind of sabotage was good sabotage to either of us. I placed the scissor back where I'd found them and turned on my heel, ready to leave.

"You better not hurt her."

Her voice may have been small, but there was no mistaking the care behind Trina's words. I spun around to face her again and she stood her ground, looking me straight in the eye in a sudden burst of confidence.

"I mean it, Jade." Her voice was low and quiet with a slight threatening edge; that was the only thing that kept me listening to her. "She's my sister and I don't know if you're playing some stupid game or if you genuinely have some kind of feelings for Tori, but if she ends up hurt because of you I'll-"

"You'll what?" I inquired, my voice equally as low, making her flinch and whatever threat she was trying to formulate died in an instant. I shifted closer to her, being sure to keep my words a hiss. "I don't know what this thing between me and Tori is, but it's certainly not a game. Now, why don't you stop butting in and let us figure it out for ourselves and…" I drew back, my hand on the handle ready to leave, my words turning softer. "I'll try my best not to hurt her."

This seemed to satisfy, or scare, Trina and it was true. My goal through all of this was not to hurt Tori, but to try to work out whatever it was between us and see where it would lead. Sure, I may have wanted to hurt her _physically_ in the past… maybe not too severely, but I've never really wanted to cause her emotional pain; I knew what that was like myself and I didn't want to be the cause of someone else's. God, I was going soft.

With a final nod, I pushed the handle down and strolled out of the janitor's closet followed quickly by a slightly frazzled Trina. I was already ten minutes late for class so I took my time to get there, not really bothered; I'd turned up late for class plenty of times before.

Xxx

"Drive-by acting challenge!" Sikowitz yelled as soon as we stepped into the classroom after lunch, causing most of the class to groan. "You're all survivors of some crazy virus and you're fighting off a large group of rotting zombies! GO!"

Soon the air was full of shouts and screams, arms and legs flailing everywhere as we fought off imaginary corpses and tried not to smack each other in the faces as we did so. Everyone was going mad! Kicking, punching and falling to the floor. Robbie was pretending Rex was a zombie and was busy trying to detach the puppet from his neck, Beck and Andre stood back to back using books as weapons, while Cat came flying past in a blur of red, screaming her head off as she swiped her arms out, battling against whatever she thought was chasing her.

Before I knew it, Vega was at my side, dragging her leg as if a 'zombie' had grabbed a hold of it and waving her arms frantically as if that would help. I aimed a kick at where the living dead would have been, freeing its captive from its evil clutches and, at that point, Tori turned to face me, her chocolate eyes sparkling, her rosy lips curling into a smile that, I swear, made my heart stop for a second and rendered me unable to stop the goofy grin that spread across my face in return. Oh God, Jade, what is wrong with you?

"AND STOP!" Our insane acting teacher roared from the front of the room, making me, Tori and half the other students jump out of their skin. Crap! We'd been staring, hadn't we? Luckily everyone else was too distracted by the acting challenge to notice.

I awkwardly shuffled to a seat across the room, away from Tori. Not that I didn't want to sit next to her, but we couldn't afford another moment like that. To my surprise, and annoyance, puppet boy decided to take the seat beside me, giving me a shifty look as he took the seat, Rex's head also turning my direction, making me feel uncomfortable, which wasn't something I felt very often, but Robbie Shapiro has never given me such a look before.

"What?" I hissed as Sikowitz started raving on about the importance of hand gestures and how they can affect a scene.

"N-nothing!" The ventriloquist stammered, but Rex butted in.

"We know why you broke up with Beck." The puppet said in a devious voice and, if it were possible, I knew he would've smirked at me.

I felt my blood run cold; how the fuck did the dweeb and his dolly know anything? Vega's dumb sister wouldn't say a word to him, would she? Not if she valued her life. Shit! Okay, play it cool, Jade. Play it cool.

"We ran our course." I said nonchalantly, "We already explained this to you, so of course you know."

The puppet scoffed "But we know the real reason."

"Rex!" Robbie shushed, throwing a hand over Rex's mouth, which, apparently, he bit.

"Whatever you think you know, puppet, you're wrong." I snarled.

"Whatever, Wicked witch." Rex said, turning his attention back to our teacher. "We saw you and Trina in the janitor's closet earlier. We know what's going on between you two."

"TRINA!" Was he serious! Me and _Trina?_ That kid has some serious mental problems and… oops… maybe that came out louder than it was supposed to. Now everyone's eyes were on me as they wondered why I'd blurted out the elder Vega's name in the middle of class. Well, this is… embarrassing.

I glanced around at them all quickly, my eyes lingering a fraction longer on Tori as she furrowed her eyebrows and gave me a concerned look. Great, now I had to come up with some plausible explanation that didn't make me look like a total idiot. I looked back at the puppet, who I'm sure was highly amused, and Robbie, who was blushing. Perfect.

"Shapiro, I don't want to hear about you and your little crush in the middle of class." I said, glaring at Rex to keep his mouth shut. "Can't you and your little puppet talk about stuff like that away from me, I might throw up."

There were sniggers all around as Robbie turned a disturbing shade of bright pink, spluttering something that sounded like "Haven't got a crush" and "Don't know what you're talking about." Satisfied, I settled back in my seat, my trademark smirk back in place.

"Okay class! Settle down! Laugh about Robbie's misfortune in your own time!" Sikowitz called, trying to get our class back on track.

Xxx

"Hey."

It was the end of school and I was just about to get into my car when Tori wander up to me. I hadn't really spoken to her today, I was unsure of what to say. I mean, what _was _I supposed to say and do? To most of the school we were bitter rivals who got along only on a rare occasion. Now we'd discovered these… feelings underneath all of that and had even been out together for the evening. For now, keeping up appearances seemed to be a good option, we needed to show everyone we can get along, show _ourselves_ we can get along before… I don't even know, it's not like we were going to be a couple… was it?

"Hey." I replied, my fingertips skimming over the door handle I'd reached out for. There was a time I would've totally ignored her, but now…

"You know." She hitched her bag up on her shoulder from where it was falling and shifted her weight from one foot to the other, seeming a little awkward. "As much as I can believe Robbie having a thing for my sister… well, he does seem to have a thing for everyone else… what's the real reason you yelled out my sister's name in the middle of class?"

I almost rolled my eyes; of course Tori would want to know why I'd done that. Well, no point in lying to the girl. "I had a… word with Trina about what she saw yesterday." Tori opened her mouth to comment on this, but I held my hand up, wanting to continue. "I just wanted to make sure she hadn't told anyone and that she was the only one who knew."

Tori looked a little hurt by this and I wasn't sure what to say to make her feel better and keep it true. Damn, when did I start to care how Tori Vega felt? It must be a side effect from these feelings. I shook my head.

"Look, long story short, Shapiro saw us coming out of the janitors' closet and managed to get the wrong end of the stick."

She frowned. "What do you mean-"

"He thought I dumped Beck to screw around with Trina!" I said quickly, checking there was no one around to hear that.

Tori's eyebrows shot up in a comical look of shock "You and Tri-" She spluttered.

I put my hands up "That kid's got problems,"

"You're telling me." She muttered.

We shared a smile at this and, for a moment I wondered what this looked like to an outsider; me and Tori just chatting like normal teenagers would, rather than ripping each others heads off, which was normal for us. This thought was interrupted when Tori opened her mouth yet again just as a car came zooming round the corner, blaring its horn at us as it sped past and the driver yelled I could barely make out.

"Speaking of Trina." Tori said, watching the red car disappear at a dangerous speed. "There goes my ride home."

The half-Latina started rooting around in her pockets, searching for loose change while muttering something about "bus fare" and "three times in a row, mom won't be happy" under her breath. There must be something incredibly wrong with me because I placed a hand gently on her forearm and gave her a smile.

"D'you want a lift home?" The words fell out of my mouth as if out of instinct. Well, I couldn't leave her stranded, could I? ... Actually, I could, but I _am _trying to be nicer to her.

Through this internal battle of nice vs nasty, I barely heard Vega as she stuttered "A-are you sure?"

I nodded and she beamed at me, thanking me 'so very much' for the offer.

"Yeah, yeah." I said flatly, getting into the car and starting it up. "Now, hurry up before I change my mind."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Not so much Jori in this chapter, but don't worry, I'll make up for it in the next ;)  
>Still, I hope you liked it! <strong>


	16. Chapter 16

**POV: Tori**

The low sound of the radio was the only noise that filled the otherwise silent car journey up to my house. Just like before, it wasn't an awkward silence that had settled itself between Jade and I, but more of an understanding, 'this isn't the time to talk' type of stillness, which was surprisingly relaxing, given the amount of questions buzzing around my head, in desperate need of an answer.

I'd tried to keep my attention focused on the scenery drifting past the window as we got stuck in some slow moving traffic, watching the slowly darkening sky that threatened rain, which was never a good sign in my book. But my eyes kept pulling themselves toward Jade as if magnetized to the short-tempered, raven-haired woman beside me, who was busy grinding her teeth at every car that went by. I had a feeling that if I wasn't beside her right now, she'd be yelling in a way that would make Trina's road rage look tame in comparison. This was a contrast to the last car journey we took together where she had been pretty calm, even when my sister had been following us, but something told me it wasn't out of the ordinary for Jade to get easily peeved at the fellow drivers surrounding her.

We pulled into my driveway with a squeak of the breaks and I moved slowly to unbuckle my seatbelt; out of the corner of my eye I could see Jade fiddling with the strap of her own, yet her gaze remained firmly ahead of her.

"Come inside? We have coffee!" I suggested, hoping to ease some of the tension I could practically feel radiating from the girl now we'd stopped. "Think of it as a thanks for the lift home."

Jade made a noise that suggested a 'sure', her hand slipping down the fabric she was clutching to the plastic buckle, which she clicked undone with a push of her thumb.

Again, the short walk up to my house was soundless and soggy from the drizzle in the air, laced with the weight of anxiety brought on by Jade's tense stance. She reached the door first and flung it open, startling Trina, who was collapsed on one of the sofas, her cell phone glued to her ear as she arranged an appointment with the dentist for yet another teeth whitening. She sprang up from where she was slouched, her mouth agape as Jade walked swiftly past her, straight to the kitchen, flicking the switch on the kettle and helping herself to mugs and coffee.

I closed the door behind us and turned to find Trina giving me a look torn between confusion and annoyance, but the person on the other end of the phone must've started talking again because she spoke to them instead. I rolled my eyes as I strolled by to help Jade with the drinks.

Two boiling cups of coffee later: one black, two sugars, one sweetened with plenty of milk, Jade and I ended up going up to my room to get away from my sister who was now arguing with the poor woman on the other end of the line.

"How do you put up with that?" Jade asked, closing my door, yet it failed to drown out the squawk of 'What do you mean you're fully booked!'

"It's not out of choice." I replied, flopping down to sit on my bed whereas Jade remained by the door, leaning against the frame and clutching her coffee in both hands as she took small sips of the dark liquid then smirked at my statement. I was glad to see she seemed much more relaxed now than when we came in. It must be the coffee.

"You know, we could always go through with that plan we came up with." She quipped, lifting her eyebrows suggestively. "I've got rope in the back of my car-"

"I don't think it'll be a good idea to murder my sister, no matter how tempting it is sometimes." I said, cutting her off "And why do you have rope in the back of your car?"

"No reason." Jade said casually, taking another sip of coffee before sauntering over to my desk chair and scooting it closer to me once she was seated.

"So." The paler girl placed her mug on my table then turned to face me, her hands clasped together at her knees as she lent forward a little. "What's your real reason for inviting me in, Vega? To your room, no less."

I felt the heat of a blush spread across my cheeks and I spluttered a little as I tried to come up with an answer, only to have Jade smirk even more, leaning back in the chair, obviously enjoying the effect her words had.

"We're here to get away from Trina." I finally said pointedly, biting my bottom lip. "And, um, I just wanted to spend a bit of time with you" My voice trailed off into a quiet mutter with the last sentence and I turned away from Jade to stare at my floor, but still caught the amused look on her face out of the corner of my eye.

It was true. Jade and I had been spending a lot more time together and it was… nice. At first it was mainly due to working on the stage kissing project, but now, I don't know, but I was really starting to enjoy her company. I barely saw her at school today and, honestly, a little part of her was hoping she'd acknowledge that we were out together last night, but not a word of it was brought up. Although, maybe it was better this way, it was still early on in this new found… whatever it was between us, so keeping it under wraps for now seemed like the best option.

It bothered me that I didn't know what to call this… this _thing_ between us. There was no definite state of what we were. This was no longer hate and, as we had kissed more than once and even gone out on a 'date', I'd definitely say this was more a than friendship, but it couldn't be a relationship, could it?

"Jade?" I murmured. The time I'd been thinking had pasted in silence; Jade had been staring out of my window, watching the now pouring rain trickle down the glass and lost in a world of her own. She snapped out of it at the sound of her name and turned her attention back to me with a hum to show she was listening.

"Uh" I swallowed, tracing my finger around the edge of my mug that I'd lodged between my legs to keep safe. The question I intended on asking stuck in my throat as my eyes travelled up from the cup to meet the intense green of hers.

"Cat got your tongue, Vega?" She asked; that pierced eyebrow quirked in amusement.

She got up, stretched a little, then kicking the chair behind her away so the wheels rolled across my floor as far as it could go. Before I could protest this action, Jade grabbed the cup from between my legs, placing it next to hers and plopped herself on the bed beside me. I gulped.

"I'm bored, Vega." She drawled. She propped up the pillows up against the headboard of my bed and lent back against them, shifting so her legs lay across my lap, then crossed them at the ankle. My stomach flipped at the action and I watched every movement intently, trailing my eyes from her boots back up to her face to see her examining her fingernails in the same uninterested look she would wear at school.

"If you don't find some way of entertaining me soon, I may just have to leave." Jade said with a shrug, her lips twitching as a smirk threatened to break across her put on, bored expression.

I rolled my eyes, trying to keep my head even as my heart thumped hard against my rib cage and my breathing quickened at the mere proximity and the contact of her thighs on top of mine. I wasn't sure if I loved or hated the effect she had on me, how she could make all my thoughts and feelings tailspin with a brush of her arm on mine, or how I'd lose myself in the middle of a lesson just because of a simple look. It was exhilarating, a rush, something I've never really felt before with anyone. The butterflies I'd get around the boys I'd dated were nothing compared to the tornado she created in my belly.

"Tori?" I watched her lips draw out my name in a hushed tone and I realised I'd been staring at her mouth this whole time.

My cheeks coloured in yet another blush and I went to turn my head away, but her fingers drifted over the bottom of my chin, pulling me back around so our lips met in a gentle kiss. I instantly kissed her back, the nerves, confusion and everything else blown away as if they were never there to begin with. I could feel her grinning; her fingers that weren't softly tickling my chin were absently tracing circles on my leg, causing me to involuntarily shudder.

The kiss became more heated and I lost myself in sensation. Her teeth nipped lightly at my bottom lip, making me give a squeak of a gasp which she instantly took advantage of, her tongue dipping between my parted lips to hungrily meet mine. Adrenaline and hormones pumping, I lent myself forward, one hand supporting me on the bed while the other wound it's way into Jade's raven hair, bringing her closer, further deepening the kiss.

Her circling fingers wandered teasingly up the denim of my jeans, leaving a burning trail on the skin beneath until they reached my waistband and slipped under my shirt, her fingers caressing my hip, causing my breath catch in my throat. I whimpered at the touch, the heat of desire building up in me, making it impossible to think straight; just her fingertips ghosting over my skin made my brain turn fuzzy and left a tingling sensation in their wake.

I almost growled in frustration as she pulled away for air, that infamous smirk present on her lips and a spark twinkling in her eyes. I took in a sharp, much needed breath as everything came flooding back in one huge wave, knocking my already off balance mind from its axis.

"You alright there, Vega?" Jade said, looking pretty pleased with herself. "You look like you've never been kissed before."

_Not quite like that_ my mind said, whereas my mouth defensively spluttered "I- shut up!"

Jade just laughed and threw herself back against my pillows, still wearing her smug smile, like the cat that got the cream. Well, if this is what being with Jade was like, I could definitely get used to it. Except, we weren't really together, at least, not officially… what even were we?

"Jade?" I said quietly, the question I'd wanted to ask earlier coming back to me. "Are we, like, together now?"

Okay, that sounded really pathetic, but Jade stiffened at the question, the grin sliding off her face faster than it had come. Well, if that didn't worry me enough…

"I've got to go." Jade said quickly, swinging her legs off mine and she hopped from the bed quickly.

I frowned. "Wait, Jade-"

"I'll see you at school" She interrupted, almost running from my room.

I sat stunned for a moment before stumbling to my feet to follow, but by the time I got downstairs, Jade had gone. I stood in the middle of the room, gawping at the front door as I heard the faint sound of a car pulling away and the patter of the rain still falling.

What the hell just happened?

I wandered over to the sofa, thankful that Trina had vanished, and slumped against the cushions, my mind racing over the events of the past few minutes. Judging by Jade's reaction, I can guess the answer to my question was a resounding 'no'. I should've expected that really, but it didn't stop it hurting. Maybe I'm hoping for more out of this than Jade was, but she'd been so nice to me at the restaurant and, although she was still being the Jade I knew well, she was a bit more pleasant in general too.

I sighed, my head falling back against the back of the couch as I tried to sort out the crazy pile of mixed messages being sent my way, the ones giving me the huge, pounding headache that came too often for my liking.

Xxx

"Good mornin', sista!" Trina called as she skipped down to breakfast the next morning.

I watched her from my seat in front of the tv, my legs stuck up on the table in front of me as I hunched over my cereal bowl, in no mood for my sisters sudden cheeriness this early in the morning. I had once again had trouble sleeping last night. I'd tired getting in contact with Jade after her sudden exit, but any phone call I made went straight to voice mail and the texts I sent got no response. Maybe I was coming off as pushy, or needy, but I just wanted to know what had happened.

"Hey, what's up?" Trina asked as she scooted up beside me on the couch, taking a huge bite of the apple in her hand.

"Nothin'."

"Yeah, right!" Trina dismissed with a snort, spraying me with apple spit which I promptly wiped from my face. "Is it Jade?"

I pursed my lips, not wanting to answer, but she placed a hand on my knee, leaning forward to give me a pitying smile. "Come on, I can tell something happened between you two yesterday. Wanna talk to your big sister about it?" She patted my knee then pulled back a little. "But, I don't want to know _all _the details, I mean, what happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom-"

"TRINA!" I yelled over her, almost spilling my cereal as she nudged my arm and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. "Nothing like _that_ happened!"

"Uh huh" She patted my knee again as she got up and moved towards the kitchen.

"It didn't!" I defended.

"Okay, okay, I believe you!" Trina called over, now rooting through the cupboards. "So, you really like her, huh?"

I hung my head, _yes._

"Do we have to talk about this?"

"Yup." She said, now hopping back next to me with her own bowl of cereal after quickly finishing the apple.

I rolled my eyes and tapped my spoon against my bowl, wanting to avoid saying anything for as long as possible. Trina fell back against the cushions, watching me closely as she waited for me to talk, then she too rolled her eyes and punched me lightly in the arm.

"Come on!" She said, poking me where she'd punched. "Spill! It's obviously bugging you!"

"Fine!" I huffed in defeat. I knew she wouldn't leave me alone, and I still had a whole car journey to school to endure after this. "Jade ran out on me yesterday."

"Were you _that_ bad?"

"TRINA!"

"Alright, alright, I was kidding!" She raised her hands defensively.

"I'm not talking to you if you're going to be like that." I said grumpily.

"Okay, I'll behave." Trina grinned, spooning milk and cornflakes into her mouth "So, why'd she run out on you?"

I shrugged and muttered in a rush. "I kinda asked if we were together now and she just left."

"So that would be a no, then?"

I glared at her.

"Well, she probably would've stayed if it was a yes!"

"Thanks, Trina, this is making me feel a lot better." I said sarcastically, getting up to put my bowl in the dishwasher.

I heard her sigh, then follow me, placing her hand on my shoulder. "Look, I'm sorry. This is just a weird situation, you know?"

I nodded. "Tell me about it."

"Well." She said, walking around me to lean against the counter top. "If you two really like each other, then I'm sure you'll work things out. Maybe she's just, I dunno, _scared_ by it all. I mean, she was dating Beck for years, who is a _boy_, by the way, so moving on to a girl, who she is meant to hate, _is_ kinda strange."

"But I've dated guys too, never a girl" I pointed out.

"Yeah, but you weren't dating anyone when this all started, were you?" Trina reasoned. "Look, I know you, Tori. You're accepting of everyone and everything, so, you… _liking _girls, or at least Jade, is just something you accept about yourself and you go with it to make it work, rather than fighting against it."

She paused to sip the juice she had poured herself during the course of this conversation. Trina's good at multitasking like that, as long as one of the activities she's doing is talking. "Maybe it's not that easy for Jade to come to terms with. In that case, you're going to have to give her some time to figure it all out"

I was surprised by Trina's sudden words of wisdom; it happened sometimes, when she stopped thinking about herself from five minutes. "I guess you're right. Thanks, Trina."

My sister smiled and tapped me on the nose affectionately. "Come on now, let's go to school. Maybe you two can talk things out there."

"Hopefully." I replied, grabbing my school bag then following my older sibling out the door.

Xxx

Three days. Three whole days it has been since Jade had run from my bedroom and things were nowhere near better. She still wouldn't talk to me. She still wouldn't answer my texts or calls, she ignored me at school… she wouldn't even look at me!

On the first day, I tried to brush it off, I tried to talk to her like normal, maybe slipping in a hint here and there that I wanted to talk about what had happened, but she continually gave me the silent treatment, acting like I was the gum on the bottom of her shoe that she was dying to get rid of, but it wouldn't come off.

Day two, I'd used Cat as my go between, begging her to ask Jade what was wrong and help me find a way to get her to talk again, but every time Cat just came back with no answers and, occasionally, some wacky story about her brother. By now, this sudden cold shoulder left me frustrated, and I think the gang were starting to pick up on the more-than-normal tension between the two of us as each of them would throw us both weary looks whenever we were in the same place at the same time.

It was Andre who decided to do something about it first, at break, just before our class with Sikowitz. I'd just finished putting my books away in my locker from the previous lesson when he grabbed my arm and pulled me around, a seriously look on his face,

"What's going on between you and Jade?" He asked in a tone that matched his look.

"W-what do you mean?" I asked, attempting to look puzzled.

He cocked an eyebrow at me. "Come on, Tori." He said gently, his hand still gripping my arm slid down and away from me. "You two aren't acting like you usually do. You're not arguing and Jade's not even looking at you. Has something happened?"

Have I mentioned I'm the worst liar? Especially when it comes to my friends: Andre and Cat in particular. You'd think being an actress improved the ability to lie, but it didn't. But, the truth? What was I supposed to say? '_Oh, you know, we were kissing in my room the other day then, when I asked if we were together, Jade ran for it._'? I couldn't picture that going down well.

As the wheels of my brain ticked away, trying to formulate a response that didn't make me sound insane, the bell rang loudly, signalling the beginning of our next classes. Silently thanking it, I turned my confused look to a grin.

"Oh, look! Time for class! Must dash!" I almost laughed, turning on my heel and striding off in the direction of Sikowitz's classroom.

"Hey, Tori! Wait up!" I heard Andre call out as he followed behind me, but I faked not hearing him and carried on, entering the room before anyone else.

Slowly, the class turned up for the lesson, Andre arriving shortly after me with Robbie, who was apparently arguing with Rex over some Northridge girls the puppet had met the previous night. Andre shot me a meaningful look as he took his seat next to mine, but could say no more on the topic as Jade appeared at that very moment, closely followed by Beck and a bubbly Cat; I couldn't help the stab of jealousy I felt at seeing the gothic girl with her ex-boyfriend, no matter how stupid that was. The latter two waved when they noticed me looking in their direction, but, once again, Jade completely ignored me, her eyes swiftly moving over me as the scanned the classroom.

"THERE'S A WILD BEAR IN THE CORRIDOR!"

I jumped and was broken out of my not-so-subtle staring at the dark haired girl across the room by Sikowitz's scream as he burst through the door with a terrified expression on his face. Every student leapt to his or her feet, each panicking as they scrambled for the exit until our acting teacher gave a shout of laughter, clapping his hands together to grab everyone's attention.

"Fooled ya!" He grinned triumphantly, bouncing up onto the small stage as the class collectively rolled their eyes and settled back down again. _Should've known._

"Now that I have you all alert" The acting teacher continued, pacing back and forth on the stage with his bare feet. "I would like to start this lesson with an alphabetical improv challenge!"

This announcement was met with a few groans.

"Well!" Sikowitz threw his head back as if offended before making his way over to me. "Tori, how would you like to start us off?"

"I-uh" I attempted to protest, but was quickly yanked up onto the stage in front of everyone, Sikowitz now stood in front of me as he looked around the rest of the class.

"Cat. Jade. You two as well."

This was greeted by two very different reactions: Cat giggled and clapped before jumping up beside me, whereas Jade groaned very loudly and slouched her way to the front of class, standing on Cat's other side, not even glancing at me.

"Okay!" Sikowitz called "This can be about anything you want! Tori, you start. Eli, would you like to give us a letter?"

"Um" Eli said, looking a little flustered about being called upon. Cat giggled again and gave him a tiny wave. "M"

"M it is! Tori, go!"

Shaking my head to quickly prepare myself, I said the first thing that came to mind, directing it at Jade. "Maybe you would like to explain what happened?"

"No, not really." Came her lightening response, as if she expected me to say that.

"Oh, come on, guys!" Cat said, her bright brown eyes darting between the two of us.

"Perhaps you'd like me to tell the whole class? Then maybe you'll talk" I threatened, gesturing out to everyone as I spoke, receiving very confused looks in return.

Jade growled, turning to face me for the first time in days. "Quiet, you, or I'll-"

"Really, you should calm down." Cat cut in, holding her hands up to push us further apart and looking worried.

"She started it!" I accused, pointing at Jade.

"Take that back!" Jade retaliated.

"U… u… udders!" Cat yelled randomly, leaving everyone, including Jade and I, perplexed. Apparently that was her way of changing subject using the letter u.

"…Very weird." I said, remembering it was my turn in this game.

"When isn't she?" Jade jabbed. She wouldn't usually insult Cat like that, not even in something like this, and I didn't miss the hurt look the little red head gave her.

"Xylophones make me feel better!" Cat cried, skipping off the stage to grab one of the instruments that conveniently lay on the window sill.

"You're being ridiculous! Please explain?" I continued in a plea, getting us back on track to where I was heading with this challenge. If now was the only time I could get Jade talking to me, then this was what I'd have to settle for, and we could pass it off as acting.

"Zero chance of that happening." She responded, turning away again.

"As if I really care." I huffed, hoping this may get something out of her.

"Best not to ask then." Of course, it wouldn't be that easy.

"Can't we work this out?"

I watched Jade grit her teeth at this, quickly thinking over what to say. I could see the conflict etched on her face as she rounded on me, even taking a step closer now Cat had gone.

"Don't you think I'm _trying_?" She asked quietly, something cracking in wall she'd put up after she left me three nights ago. "It's not easy!"

"Easy! I never said it was!" I shouted back. "It's far from easy!"

"Far from easy is right." Jade agreed in a mutter.

"Guys?" Cat said timidly, making her way back to the centre of the stage, stepping in between us, but we both ignored her.

By now, the class were watching us with rapt attention, some completely enthralled by our performance, while others merely looked baffled, unsure if we were actually acting or not. Maybe this actually wasn't the best time to talk to Jade about our situation, especially not in front of a room full of classmates and close friends, but I'd gone too far to back down now.

"Have you got any idea what you want to do about it?" I asked in a gentler tone.

Jade swallowed. "I- I think I do."

I raised an eyebrow, speaking before Cat got a chance. "Just what would that be?"

Jade took a deep breath, looking up into my eyes for the first time in what felt like forever. My heart skipped a beat at this gesture and Jade blew the breath out after what seemed like an age, about to say her line when-

"Jade! You're out!" Sikowitz hollered, throwing an arm in the air.

"WHAT!" Jade yelled, breaking her gaze set on me to face the acting teacher.

"You hesitated for far too long! Sit down!" He said, unfazed by Jade's anger. "Tori and Cat, you continue from K!."

Jade looked torn between annoyance and relief as she stormed off the stage, leaving me desperate to know what she was going to say. I watched her as she slumped back into her seat beside Beck, crossing her arms and scowling at the back of Sikowitz's head. If looks could kill, then the man would be on fire by now.

"Kick that ball over here." Cat said suddenly from my right.

"What ball?" I asked dumbly, totally forgetting about the improv until Sikowitz imitated a buzzer.

"Tori!" He said, shaking his head with a smile. "Everyone knows L comes after K! You're out!"

"Oh." Was all I managed to say as I took my seat again, glad that I'd messed up and put a stop to the game. Not that I didn't like improv challenges in class, they were certainly fun to play, but now all I wanted to do was have a proper conversation with Jade, so the quicker this class was over, the better.

"Right!" Sikowitz said, nudging Cat back towards her chair, as the red head still stood on stage, obviously unsure if she should continue the challenge somehow. "On with the lesson!"

Xxx

Double lessons seem to drag at the best of times, but this acting class felt like it would last forever! As Sikowitz took us through yet another lesson about hand gestures, I couldn't help my eyes continually drifting over to Jade, even though she sat behind me, me being in my usual seat at the front of class while she was a few rows back, making it difficult to stop my glances from being obvious. For the most part, she ignored me, her attention fixed on the stage ahead where people were being dragged up for demonstrations, although I'm sure she wasn't really paying attention. Once or twice I could feel her eyes on me and, as I faced her, I'd catch her turning away, pretending she hadn't been staring at the back of my head.

During one of my many failed attempts to get Jade's attention, I managed to get Becks instead, who gave me a bemused smile in return before his eyes flicked to the girl on his right then back to me again, his eyebrows furrowed slightly in question. I just shook my head at him, turning back as Sikowitz made a comment on how "a hand on the waist is important to the meaningfulness of a kiss" and that we should think about that next time our characters had to play a love scene. His eyes twinkled over in my direction as he said this, a small smile playing on his lips.

I can't tell you how revealed I was when the bell finally rang for the end of the day. The class immediately got to their feet and began their usual chatter, while the crazy acting teacher dived for the back door, just as eager to leave as his students. I noticed Jade hanging back a little, fiddling with something in her bag while Beck stood beside her, waiting for her to move. I shuffled for the door, keeping half an eye on the two of them, watching as Jade muttered something about her not needing a chaperone wherever she went and Beck coming back with something about being a good friend, but I couldn't hang around for their whole conversation, as I was pushed out of the doorway by the crowd of pupils still behind me, taking me out into the corridors to where our lockers resided.

Realising I'd gotten barely any further with my pursuit for an answer, I sighed as I stuffed my things back in my locker and grabbed the jacket I'd brought with me, tucking my arms into the sleeves as I pulled it on and prepared myself to wait for Trina, who had a lesson all the way on the other side of school, meaning she was always later than usual to the car on Thursdays. I'd lent over to pick my bag up again, tossing it onto my shoulder when I felt my hood being yanked, choking me a little, and I stumbled as I was pulled away from the safety of the corridor then shoved into a small room which, once the door was closed and the light switch was flicked on, I instantly recognised as the janitors closet.

And there, stood in front of me, was Jade, her eyes fixed on the ground, wearing a blank expression, just like the other night.

We stood awkwardly for a few moments in complete silence; I could hear the last remaining students wander away and out of school. Only when the last footsteps died did Jade look up and speak.

"Kiss me."

* * *

><p><strong>AN: **

**azrfgvubhjk,;l,mnb**

**...Sorry, I may of head butted the keyboard there.  
><strong>**You guys have _no _idea how much of a struggle it was for me to write this chapter and get it sounding part way decent.  
>Usually, I will edit a chapter once or twice before I'm happy enough to pos it, but this one's taken me at least six attempts and I'm still not totally pleased.<strong>

**I blame Tori, I always find it harder to write from her point of view in this, for some reason. Considering I roleplay as Tori, that's kinda weird.**

**Anyways, you can put the pitch forks down now... or not, depending on how much you hate this chapter.**

**Review? Possibly? Tell me (_that you love me_) what you think?**

****I'm going to shut up now and rest the headache this thing has given me.****


	17. Chapter 17

**POV: Jade**

"Kiss me."

The words slipped from my mouth, unplanned, not in a demand, but in a desperate plea. She looked absolutely dumbstruck, but I couldn't take the wait for a response and subconsciously dived forward, grabbing both her wrists in my hands and tugging her to claim her lips with my own, hoping to pour every ounce of hidden feelings, of words I couldn't say, of, just, _everything_ into the most passionate and heartfelt kiss I could muster. To my surprise and relief, she responded eagerly, arms wrapping around my neck, her tongue easily slipping in to meet mine, a wild hunger coursing though my veins at the sensation. I was instantly lost in her, her scent, her taste, her touch, her kiss. There was nothing but Tori right now. No school, no closet, no stupid avoidance, just Tori and I.

The three days since I ran out of her room had gone by in what felt like an eternity. I needed the time to myself, to lock myself in my own mind and think. Just think. Think about everything that had happened since Sikowitz paired us together for that stage kissing project, even pushing myself further back, to when she had started at school, and all the insane feelings that had sprung up the second I saw her bathed in the bright lights on stage in the Big Showcase.

Maybe it was that very moment that I fell for Tori Vega; I remembered my heart skipped a beat the second she shuffled nervously on stage and I'd sucked in a sharp breath, which had caused Beck to give me a weird look and pat my hand gently in comfort. But I had withdrawn from the touch, completely captivated by the girl on stage.

Not that I let it show, or that my mind understood the sudden rush of feelings forced upon it. All it did was shine, big, flashing, neon, warning lights, yelling "THREAT!" over and over again. I knew right then she was beautiful and talented, destined to be a star, even if she didn't know it herself, even if I pretended she wasn't. My defences automatically went up at this knowledge, and any other feeling for the girl was tucked away in deep, dark corner of my mind, only to emerge now, covered in a thick coat of dust that had slowly been blown away since that first kiss.

I was unwillingly brought back to reality as Tori pulled back from me for air, her breathing heavy from the impromptu make-out session I had just landed on her. There was a dazed smile playing lazily on her lips that soon turned into a questioning gaze up at me, her eyebrows arrowed over the bridge of her nose as if she trying to be angry, but couldn't quite manage it.

"Jade-" She began to ask, but I immediately cut in.

"Kiss me." I repeated confidently, still trying to set my breathing right. "It's what I was going to say in the improv challenge, before Sikowitz interrupted me."

She looked confused again for a moment then it clicked and she looked back up at me, her mouth slightly open in what I guess was shock. "Y-you were going to… to kiss me in front of the whole class?"

I shrugged, suddenly and inexplicably feeling shy, which is something I never do. Jade West never feels shy. Then again, Jade West has been feeling a lot of things she's never meant to feel lately.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time." I explained. "But now I'm kinda glad Sikowitz cut in. We'd have some explaining to do to everyone otherwise."

Tori nodded slowly, seemingly still stunned by my admission, and, honestly, I was too. I'd spent those three days brooding. Barely talking to anyone and getting snappy if someone hung around for too long. Everyone pretty much just shrugged it off as 'Jade being Jade' but it didn't take long for my friends to notice that _something_ was up. Cat had been first to see it, and she knew exactly what it was, but the little red head knew better than to hound me about it, instead she just let me get on with figuring it out.

Unlike Beck. He seemed to hang around me a lot more than a broken up couple should and would often ask softly what the matter was, occasionally reaching out to lay a hand on my arm which I shrugged off, not wanting to be touched, especially not by him.

I had withdrawn in myself, finally processing and figuring out everything I'd been meaning to figure out a long time ago. Yes, the feelings I had for Tori were more than friendship. Yes, that scared me. I'd never really had feelings for any girl before, unless you count admiring certain famous people that could easily be mistaken for crushes. But, no matter how much it scared me, or how confused it made me, I could no longer deny that I wanted to be with her.

We hadn't done much at her house that night, we hadn't even spoken a lot, but I realised just how comfortable I felt around the half-Latina. Before, even through the disguise of hate, she was the only one I'd go running to for help with problems, from breaking up with Beck to impressing my father. It was like she made me feel safe and she was always there to help, maybe not so willing at first, but she'd put her all into it regardless.

"Jade? You still here?" Tori's voice suddenly sounded.

Oh, man! I zoned out again. I've been zoning out so much lately I'm surprised I haven't just packed up and moved into my head. I blinked a few times, then nodded. "Yeah, just thinking."

"About?"

I pulled a face and gestured between the two of us. "This"

Tori's teeth sank into her lower lip as she sighed and ran a hand through her brunette locks. There was sadness in her eyes when she finally looked back up at me. "Jade, if you're going to run out on me again-"

"I'm not" I interrupted yet again, reaching out to grasp her arm, my thumb rubbing circles over the tan skin. "I'm not, Tori, I swear and I'm… I'm sorry I did before. I just needed to get away."

"Get away?" Tori repeated, tugging herself from my hold, sounding offended. "You had to get away from me?"

"That's not what I meant-" I began, but it was Tori's turn to talk over me.

"You've done nothing but run away, Jade!" She cried in exasperation "Every time I think we're getting somewhere with this, you leave me. And it's not fair! It's not just you who's confused with this, Jade, and you can't keep _fucking_ with my emotions like this! I thought you wanted to give this a chance!"

I was slightly taken aback by her cursing, but I made sure not to let it show. I could feel anger bubbling up at Tori's own annoyance and I desperately tried to quash it. "I do, but it's not been easy, Vega."

"Don't I just know it?" She muttered, folding her arms over her chest and looking away.

"_That's _why I needed to get away." I continued, emphasising my point. "I needed sometime to think."

"W-what did you think about?" Tori asked, losing her anger as she let her arms drop to her sides.

"About _this_!" I cried, my arms thrown up in the air. "Me, you, _us_! These mixed up feelings that I have and trying to figure out what the hell they mean!"

I sucked in a breath, desperate to not let my anger get the better of me. I took a step forward, glad that Tori stood her ground, and my fingertips went back to tracing circular patterns on her forearm.

"I've been a gank." I stated, plain and simple. "Now, you've got to listen, because this isn't like me and you'll probably never get another moment like this in forever, okay? So, hear me out."

Tori nodded and visibly gulped. I looked into her eyes, and then sighed, bringing my free hand up to run through my hair. _Its confession time, West, and you need to stop running away from it. You're hurting yourself just as much as you're hurting Tori, so spit it out now, or regret it later. _I suppressed a chuckle at my inner voice sounding like an angry Cat would in this situation; that girl would be proud if she could see me now.

"I- I really like you, Tori." I said quietly. "And that's a lot for me to get my head around, because I'm meant to hate you." I could see her struggle not to roll her eyes when I said this. "But over these past few days when we weren't talking-" she raised an eyebrow at me, her arms crossed again. "Fine, when _I_ wasn't talking to _you_, I realised that I really like having you around, spending time with you, hell, I like kissing you!"

Tori gave a small laugh, her lips twitching into a smile. "Yeah, that is a nice bonus." She said, a little shyly.

I nodded with my own smile, but my expression sobered as I continued. "But I just had to be sure. I just needed some space to clear my head and think about my life and I realised a lot of things. You make me feel comfortable, Tori. You help me out with my problems, even though you're sometimes the cause… like now. But, you make me feel like I can be myself, the real me, the _whole_ me, and not have to hide behind a ganky front the whole time." I gestured to myself. "You let me shed my mask and, I dunno, I like it, I guess."

I trailed off, feeling awkward, not quite sure what to say. The confession was spilling out of me with no real thought behind it, just saying things I knew I needed to say to explain myself. She gazed intently up at me the whole time, a hard look in her eye, not from anger anymore, but as if she was trying to read me and be sure I was telling her the truth. I made sure not to break the eye contact, wanting her to know I meant every word.

"I really am sorry." I said softly, my fingers moving up to caress her cheek. "And I really do want to give this a go. Will you give me another chance?"

Damn, I'd asked for permission. This was a new one for me too, but I knew I needed to, I couldn't just barge my way back in. Tori was different from everyone else in my life, she actually stood up to me and she'd push my out if that was what she wanted, rather than roll over and allow me to walk all over her.

My fingertips wandered over her perfect cheekbones, the ones that made all other girls sick with envy, and I could no longer deny were beautiful. God, she was turning me into a mushy sap, but I didn't mind it, as long as no one else knew. Slowly, she nodded her head, her lips barely parted, trying to form words, but she seemed to give in and launched herself at me, throwing me into a kiss that caught me off guard and almost knocked me off balance. I couldn't help but smile into it, my arms wrapped tightly around my waist, her arms around my neck, as I drew her in closer, the feeling of butterflies in my stomach that I no longer fought against made me feel lighter than air. We drew back quickly again, both of us grinning stupidly from ear to ear.

"So, I'll take that as a yes, then." I laughed, pleased to see a small blush colour her cheeks.

She was about to say something when the smile slipped from her face, replaced with a look of horror as she stared at the door behind me. I whipped around and through the long, thin window I could see a pair of deep brown, almost black, eyes staring at me as if transfixed, the hurt evident behind them. They blinked once, turning cold as a stony expression fell upon the owners face. Then they were gone, storming off down the corridor, away from the janitors' closet where Tori and I stood, me rooted to the spot, Tori just as stunned.

"Shit." I muttered regaining the ability to move, pushing past Tori, who had taken a step forward, then raced to the door, calling after the retreating back.

Xxx

"BECK!" I yelled after my ex-boyfriend as I chased him through the empty school corridors, the only sounds being my boots slapping against the floor and my heavy breathing. "BECK!"

Shit! I didn't want him to find out like that, I didn't want _anyone_ to find out just yet! The look I'd caught in his eyes said it all, and I knew I had some more explaining to do, to him this time. I just hoped he'd let me.

"Beck." I said, my voice soft, as I finally caught up with him. He was sat up on one for the tables in The Asphalt Café, his feet up on the bench with his arms resting on his knees, hands clasped together. He was staring straight ahead, his expression completely blank; he didn't even look at me as I approached and hopped up next to him. "Beck."

"Her?" He said after a few moments, so quietly that I almost missed it.

"It's not what you-"

"Not what I think!" He gave a harsh laugh and rounded on me, a fierce look in his eyes now. "Don't even _try_ that one with me, Jade! You were kissing _her_! Tori!"

I opened my mouth, searching for words to defend myself, but nothing more than a choking sound came out. He threw his head back in another humourless laugh then jumped off the table, standing in front of me with his hands stuffed into the back pockets of his jeans.

"So, that's why you dumped me! For _her_? For Tori Vega! You _hate_ her, Jade! Why the hell are you kissing her in a closet!"

"I didn't dump you for her, Beck." I reasoned, feeling my anger beginning to rise. "We broke up because it wasn't working out anymore, what I feel for Tori is completely unrelated!"

"So, you have feelings for her?" He ran a hand through his hair, a touch of hysteria in his voice as if he didn't believe me.

"I didn't really get a choice in it." I muttered truthfully, then raised my voice a little. "I didn't ask for these feelings, they just… happened."

"Oh, yeah? And how long have they been 'happening'?"

He had me there. If I told him it was since the stage kissing project, he'd still think I dumped him for Tori. If I lied he'd see through it, or just wouldn't believe me.

"That doesn't matter! It's got nothing to do with us!"

"It has _everything_ to do with us, Jade!" Beck bellowed. He was pacing back and forth now as I stood stock still, watching his every move. "You know, I thought this whole thing was going to blow over. I thought it would be like every other time: we'd break up then a week or so later we'd be back together again. I thought that was why you've been moping around lately."

Suddenly, he stopped pacing and slammed a palm down on the table behind him, hard enough to make the plastic seating shake. "But, no! Instead, when I come to look for you to see if you wanted to give it another go, I see you in a closet with your tongue shoved down Tori Vega's throat!"

He took a deep breath; I could tell the blow to the hand stung but he was refusing to let that show, instead he just raked the fingers of his other hand through his hair once more. I'd seen Beck angry before- hell, we had fought enough!- but nothing quite compared to this. When I left his RV that evening after we broke up, I'd left us too, for good. I thought he'd accepted it a little too easy, but I thought it was because he knew it had been a long time coming. Seems like he hadn't accepted it at all, and was just waiting for me to come running back. Not this time.

"It's not like that!" I screamed at him, needing him to understand. "We broke up because, like you said, things had run their course! I've moved on. And yes, I like Tori now, I have for a while, but that has _nothing to do with us!_"

"So, what, you're a lesbian now?" Beck asked with a slight smirk.

I cringed. I hadn't thought that far ahead, and I hated putting labels on myself; I'm not a damn soup can. "I'm not anything, Beck. Why can't you just accept that it's over between us?"

"Because I love you, Jade." His voice lost all its anger in an instant, only to be replaced with hurt. "And I thought you loved me too."

That hit me where it hurt.

"I did love you, Beck. I still do, in a way. But it's just not the same anymore." I tried to explain, my words as soft as I could make them. Damn, people are really getting the better of me today. "We fought too much; we had a lot of issues, especially jealously on my part. I- I think we're better off as friends."

"So, it really is over between us?" He said, realisation finally dawning.

"I'm sorry, Beck."

He shrugged, apparently collecting himself. His hand automatically pushed back his hair and he looked away. "Whatever, Jade. Go. Have fun with your little girlfriend, or play thing, or whatever she is to you. I'll see you around."

Beck turned on his heel before I could say another word and strode across the parking lot to where his car sat. I watched him as he hopped in, started it up then drove steadily away from the school, and away from me. I felt sick, like we'd broken up all over again. I never thought he'd take it so hard, if anything, I thought _I'd_ be worse off when we finally called it quits, but that wasn't the case. He had no right to just assume I'd come back, but it was what he was used to; it was the comfort, routine thing again, doing stuff because that's what we're used to. It almost felt like I'd been leading him on over the short time we'd been apart, although, I gave him no indication that we'd get back together. To me, it was final, and still is.

Somehow managing to forget all about abandoning Tori in the janitors' closet, I made my way to my own car, getting in just as calmly as Beck had done, keeping all my anger and resentment under control. I wasn't going to break down again like before, I'd already dealt with that, I just needed to be on my own again.

Xxx

I lay back on my bed with my hands behind my head, staring up at the ceiling as music pounded in my ears through the oversized headphones I wore. I'd skipped school that day; I just couldn't face it. I couldn't take whatever Beck would throw at me, whether it was accusing, hurt filled glares or just ignoring me altogether. The guy had been a huge part of my life but even in the two, almost three, years that we had been together, I'd never seen him look like that. He was always so strong, so calm. Sure, he'd blown up once or twice when we got into a big fight, but this was a different kind of anger, and it made me feel sick to know I was the cause.

The other reason I couldn't go was because of Tori. I'd once again run out on her with no explanation and I knew she wouldn't take it well, even after everything I'd confessed. I mean, me chasing after my ex-boyfriend probably doesn't look good from her point of view. Maybe I was a coward for not wanting to face either of them, but I couldn't care less right now.

One song ended and through the small, silent gap between it and the next, I heard a voice calling out. Removing my headphones so they settled around my neck, the beat of the music still easily heard as it pulsed against my collar bone, I strained my ears to make out just who was yelling at me about what.

"LYN!"

I cringed; my damn step-mom wanted me. I'd know it was her even if I didn't recognise the voice as she was the only idiot in the world who would ever call me _Lyn_. Yes, my full name is Jade_lyn_, named after some relative who probably died a long time ago, but I never, ever used it. Jade is who I am and always will be, but for some reason my dear step mother found it, in her words, 'cute', to use the second half of my name instead.

It's strange how she hasn't learnt by now that I do not answer to it.

"Lyn!" She was getting closer to my door, her whiney, nasally voice already irritating me.

"Jade." She finally used my first name as my bedroom door was pushed open. Her peroxide blond head peered around as she looked at me through a huge pair of dark sunglasses. "As I've been trying to tell you for the past five minutes, your friends are here."

I cocked my head to one side, raising an eyebrow at her. "Who?"

"That little, crazy red head." She replied, earning a small growl from me; I absolutely hated it when _she_ called Cat 'crazy'. "And some other girl. Brunette, kinda tall, really skinny."

My heart seemed to stop for a second; Tori was here? With Cat? Well, I couldn't avoid them forever but-

"In here." My thoughts were interrupted when the blond _thing_ disappeared back into the corridor, only to be replaced by a bouncing Cat Valentine and a shy, awkward looking Tori Vega, who said a small thanks to the woman before closing my door softly to behind her. I sat up on my bed, leaning against the headboard as I took the headphones away completely now and switched my PearPod off, my eyes fixed on the half-Latina who stayed on the other side of the room to me, unlike Cat, who had jumped on my bed the second she entered and was now sat happily swinging her legs back and forth over the side.

"Hi!" she greeted cheerfully, waving at me..

"What are you doing here?" I asked, trying but failing to sound annoyed. I watched Tori shift as she stared at the floor, refusing to look at me.

"Tori couldn't remember the way to your house, so I helped her!" Cat replied, sounding proud of herself.

"Cat!" Tori finally looked up to half-heartedly scowl at the smaller girl.

"Whatty?"

"Nevermind." She sighed, a faint blush on her cheeks. With what seemed like great effort, Tori finally turned to look at me with an attempt at a smile. "How come you weren't at school today?"

I shrugged. "Didn't feel like it."

"One time, my brother skipped school a lot, so they suspended him for a month, but then he forgot and kept going back to school and they kept having to kick him out until they got fed up and gave him a restraining order." Cat grinned. "He has it framed on his wall."

The two of us gawked at Cat for a moment before we both shook our heads, deciding it were best not to ask. Tori bit her lip before she crossed the room, sitting herself between me and Cat, a guilty expression on her face.

"I saw you and Beck fight." She admitted. When I just stared at her, taken aback, she continued. "I went running after you, to see what was going on. I didn't want to interrupt or anything, so I stayed out of the way, but… I heard the whole thing."

I swallowed, unsure of how to feel about this. I think she expected me to be angry, but I wasn't; that even surprised me. No, I think I was more relieved, mainly because that meant I didn't have to do anymore explaining, but, I don't know, there was something else I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"I understand why you went after him, Jade. He has a right to know the truth after… after what he saw." Tori said, staring down at her fingers that were nervously wrapping around each other.

I didn't know what to say, so I leant forward to place a hand over hers, stopping her fidgeting. Her bottom lip caught between her teeth as her eyes trailed from our hands to my face, a small, shy smile tugging at the corner of her mouth.

"I'm sorry I ran out on you again, Vega." I apologised for what felt like the millionth time. For someone who doesn't apologise much, this was a big deal for me. She better appreciate it.

Her shoulders lifted in a shrug. "It's okay. I get it."

"And I meant what I said before." I continued, my thumb circling over the back of her hand in comfort. "I do want to give this a go, but this is just all new to me and, kinda weird."

She laughed softly. "You can say that again."

I smiled. "Come here" Something must've taken over my body because the next second I found myself gathering Tori into my arms in a hug. She was just as stunned as I was, but after a moment I felt her arms slink around my waist and Tori cuddled in closer to me, burying her head against my shoulder, her nose nuzzling my neck. I couldn't help but grin as her breath tickled over my skin. Over the top of her head I looked up at Cat, who was being very quiet the whole time, understanding the seriousness of the situation, but she was still beaming from ear to ear as she watched us. Her face practically split in half when she caught my eye and gave me a quick thumbs up, to which I rolled my eyes.

Eventually, we pulled away from each other, but neither letting go fully; Tori's hand found its way to mine and, with a quick, hopeful glance at me to check if it were okay, she linked our fingers together. "So, what now?"

I shrugged. "Dunno."

"You're girlfriends!" Cat cried excitedly, bouncing up at down where she sat on the bed, clapping her hands together. The momentum caused both Vega and I to bob around too and after a second, identical smirks broke out on both of our faces as we burst out laughing at our over excited friend.

"Whatty?" Cat asked, instantly stopping her jiggling as she pouted at us. We both shook our heads, unable to respond while we tried to stop ourselves from sniggering anymore.

It didn't take long for us all to calm down again, a comfortable silence falling over the three of us. I felt a lot better now, like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders, there was just one last thing I needed to know.

"So, uh" I began, feeling a bit awkward. "Are we, you know… girlfriends, then?"

Tori smiled. "Are you trying to ask me out, Jade?" She teased.

"Maybe." I replied in a nonchalant tone.

"Welp, you're going to have to do better than that!" She smirked, crossing her arms.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine! Vega-" She raised an eyebrow; I glared at her for a second before smiling again. "Tori. Will you be my girlfriend?"

She put on her 'thinky' face, tapping her chin with her index finger as she pretended to mull over the question. I watched her intently, knowing she was doing this on purpose to wind me up, but I wouldn't let her have the satisfaction of knowing I was actually anxious for her answer. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Cat practically buzzing with excitement.

"If you don't answer me soon, I'll take it as a no." I threatened, unable to take her delay any longer.

Instantly her fake serious expression turned to a huge, cheesy grin. "Yes, Jade, I would love to be your girlfriend." The next moment I found her arms thrown around me as she planted a quick kiss slap bang on my lips. That was something I was going to have to get used to.

"Yay!" Cat squealed. "I'm so happy for you both!"

"Thanks, Cat." Tori said. She turned away to face the other girl, but scooted back a little so she was closer to me. "Couldn't've done it without you."

"Yeah, we owe you big time, Cat." I nodded in agreement, wrapping my arm around Tori's shoulder, feeling the little butterflies in my stomach flutter as she settled into the embrace.

Cat suddenly gasped. "Freezy Queen!" She giggled before diving off the bed and racing out the door.

Even in all the time I'd known her, I could never get used to Cats random outbursts like that. My eyebrows furrowed in confusion but next to me, Tori chuckled.

"I kinda promised to take her to Freezy Queen if she helped me out with you."

"Ah." I said, now understanding.

"I suppose we better go there, then." Tori said, reluctantly getting off the bed. She stretched out an arm when I didn't move, wiggling her fingers at me. "Coming with?"

"You want me to?" I asked, for some reason feeling unsure if I was invited or not.

"Duh" Tori replied, sticking her tongue out. "Besides, neither of us have a car, so we need some way of getting there."

I grabbed her hand, letting her help me to my feet. After quickly finding a jacket, my wallet and my keys, I followed Tori out of my house to where my car was parked, Cat already standing beside it, waiting impatiently for us to arrive. I clicked the button, zapping the car open so she could climb in the back and was about to get in as well when a question sprang to mind.

"Wait, how did you two get here if neither of you have a car?"

"Oh." Tori waved a hand dismissively. She was stood across from me, about to get in the passengers side. "Trina dropped us off. She said that things better work out because she wasn't driving all the way out here to pick us up again."

I shook my head and laughed a little as I got in the car, ready to drive my best friend and, now, girlfriend, to the ice cream store.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: YAY! *happy dance* _Finally!  
><em>I hope you guys liked this, it was, yet again, a pain to write.**

**Again, thank you all for the reviews/favourites/etc, they're so much appreciated ^_^ Keep it up ;P**

**Also, if you haven't read it yet, I've done a short one shot about Jade's family, which you can kinda link into this story. Just clicky my name up there^ and you'll find it /shameless-self-promo.**

**Oh, and you can blame the book I'm reading for the fluff xP  
>*le peace*! <strong>


	18. Chapter 18

**POV: Tori**

"I want the strawberry! No! I want the vanilla!"

We were stood at the counter of the local Freezy Queen waiting for Cat as she tried to decide which flavour of ice cream she wanted the most from the giant menu behind the desk. The cashier was drumming his fingers impatiently on the table top, his elbow resting just by, propping up his head. He shot me a wink when he caught me watching him, to which I gave a small smile.

"Oh! I want the chocolate too!" Cat whined, grabbing my sleeve and tugging at it to get my attention. "Tori! Which one shall I have?"

"Get the combo." Jade said in an irritable voice; I knew the employee was getting on her nerves with his constant drumming and sighing. She pointed up at the far side of the menu "Look, right there. Chocolate, strawberry and vanilla all in one, then you don't have to pick."

"Yay!" Cat exclaimed, clapping. "I'll take that one, please!" She grinned brightly at the cashier as she handed over her money.

Jared- according to the name tag hanging off his shirt- pushed away from where he was resting, his eyes lingering on me for a moment before he turned away and slouched off the retrieve our frozen treats, including cookie dough for me and mint choc chip for Jade. I heard Jade give a small growl, her eyes narrowed as she watched his retreating back.

"What's wrong?" I asked in a quiet voice, shuffling past Cat, who was stood between the two of us, so I could get to Jade. I placed my hand next to hers on the counter and unsurely, yet softly, ran my thumb over hers and was glad to see her smile at the comforting gesture.

A waved of butterflies invaded my stomach at this and I wanted nothing more than to just hold her hand properly, but instead, she shook her head as Jared made his way back to us and handed over our ice cream cones with an added, cocky grin at me. Jade didn't miss this and she quickly grabbed my wrist, dragging me off to the table furthest away from the teenage employee. When I turned back to check if Cat was following, I caught him watching me as we went, apparently Jade did too as she flipped him off.

"I don't like that guy." She grumbled the instant we sat down. She'd practically pushed me into the seat in the corner and plopped herself beside me so I could no longer see the desk, or be seen by anyone over there.

"But he gave us ice cream!" Cat said innocently, indicating the cone in her hand, ice cream already starting to dribble down the side.

"That's his job, Cat." Jade replied, with a bit more acid in her tone than I think she was meant to put. Thankfully Cat was too busy catching the melting cream with her finger to notice. "He's lucky I'm in a good mood, otherwise I would've knocked his teeth out." She took a rather violent bite of her treat after that.

"He was just drumming his fingers on the counter." I tried to reason, not understanding why Jade was so worked up all of a sudden.

"He was _not '_just drumming his fingers on the counter'!" Jade hissed, repeating what I'd said in the accent she used to mock me. "He was practically drooling all over you, Tori, how could you not see that!"

She slumped back in her plastic seat, moodily licking at her ice cream cone. I watched her for a second, confused, before it suddenly hit me- was Jade _jealous_? I'd seen her jealous a thousand times whenever a girl got too close to Beck, but I never imagined that a trivial little thing like that would set her off, especially when it involved me. I was still getting used to the fact I could now call the girl beside me my girlfriend and, for some reason, it made me happy that she felt strongly enough to get annoyed over something so little.

"You've got nothing to worry about." I said in an undertone, reaching out to take her hand that lay across her stomach. Her sulking quickly changed to a smile when I laced our fingers together, it made my heart skip a beat.

Before, from time to time, when I let my hopes wander far enough up, I'd let little scenarios like this play out in my head, but never did I think they'd come true. Never did I imagine that just twenty minutes earlier, Jade would've asked me to be her girlfriend, cuddled and kissed me. It all felt so surreal and I was half expecting to wake up at any moment to find Trina stood over me, yelling about how I'd be late for school if I didn't get my lazy ass out of bed. If that were the case, then please don't let me ever wake up.

"Brain freeze!" Cat suddenly called, clutching a hand to her head and breaking me out of my thoughts. Her ice cream was devoured in quick succession now, although I'm sure most of that was actually covering her mouth. Jade chuckled lightly and let go of my hand to pass a napkin over to the red head, who took it gratefully and began wiping her face in a very childlike manner.

"There's ice cream in my hair!" Cat complained, screwing up the napkin and tossing it on the table. How she managed to get in such a mess, I'll never know. "I'm going to the bathroom!"

With that announcement, she hopped up from her seat and headed off, leaving just Jade and I to sit in silence as we ate our cones. Me and my girlfriend. My girlfriend, Jade, and I. I had to keep repeating it to myself to remind myself it was real, and a goofy smile worked its way onto my lips at just the thought.

I almost inhaled the chunk of cookie dough I'd just bitten into which I when I felt her hand sneak back to mine, entwining our fingers on my knee underneath the table and watched the satisfied smirk creep onto her face out of the corner of my eye. I was about to say something just as Jared made his way over, walking with a slight swagger and that cocky grin again; I felt Jade's grip on my hand tighten, the smirk instantly vanishing.

"Enjoying your ice cream, ladies?" He said, emphasising the last word as his eyes flicked quickly over Jade and rested on me, and I now understood what she meant when she said he'd been practically drooling over me. The look he wore made me uncomfortable, but luckily, Jade stepped in.

"We were until you showed up." She said, watching the boy with great dislike. "Haven't you got a job you're meant to be doing?"

He smirked smugly. "That's exactly what I am doing. And if you talk back to me, I could get you kicked out, you know." He proudly tapped the pin just below his name tag that read 'Assistant manager'.

"Assistant manager of an ice cream store, that's an achievement." Jade said sarcastically under her breath "Now, please _assist_ us by leaving."

Any come back Jared had for that was lost in a high pitched scream as Cat came charging back to us, her eyes wide in fear. Instantly, Jade jumped to her feet and I sat up poker straight, our hands dropping as we let go of one another and our eyes began to frantically roam the place in search of exactly who or what had made Cat scream, only to be greeted by the puzzled faces of the many other customers.

"I saw a spider in there!" Cat cried when she eventually reached us.

Beside me, Jade dropped back into her chair with a groan and an eye roll and I couldn't help but shake my head; I wasn't the biggest fan of spiders either, but I certainly wouldn't scream like that… at least, not in a public place.

"Cat!" I squeaked, relaxing in my seat. "We thought someone was trying to murder you!"

"Don't ever scream like that again unless someone really is trying to murder you." Jade added, pointing a finger in Cat's face causing the little red head to pout.

"But the spider was scary!"

"Just go have some more ice cream!" Jade sighed, stuffing a couple of dollars into the red heads hand. Cat giggled with delight and skipped off to the counter again, followed closely by Jared, who looked annoyed, but he'd have to serve her. Jade then turned to me with a 'this is your fault' look.

"I've done nothing." I said, raising one hand in defence while the other still gripped my ice cream cone.

"You promised her ice cream." Jade pointed out. "And ice cream sends Cat more insane than usual. So, whatever she does is all your fault."

At any other time, I would've thought she was being serious and trying to start a fight, but I could here the playful tone in her voice and the smile, not smirk, on her face that clearly said she was messing with me. I smiled too and returned my hand to hers while we sat back and enjoyed our ice creams, hoping for no more silly little interruptions.

Xxx

If Cat ate anymore ice cream, I'm sure she would explode. The tiny girl had managed to polish off five cones and a bowl of tutti frutti with sprinkles before Jade and I had to physically drag her out of the place. She was buzzing and bobbing around in the back seat of Jade's car, unable to keep still from the huge sugar intake and we both knew she'd be complaining about stomach ache soon enough, which is why we wanted to get her home as quick as possible; neither of us wanted to deal with that.

While Cat stuffed herself into oblivion, the three of us still managed to have some decent conversations. The whole time we were in the Freezy Queen, Jade and I kept our hands held under the table, our fingers occasionally fiddling with each others or else starting thumb wars that Jade always won. It was soft and silly and fun, all things that, at one point, I never thought Jade could be, especially with me, but I loved every second of it. But now I sat in the passenger side of her car, separated from her by the gear stick, itching to be right beside her again. It was amazing that after just a couple of hours of actually being together, all I wanted was to be by Jade's side and never leave.

"Here." Jade pulled up to the Valentine residence and unbuckled her seatbelt, which I'd convinced her to wear after a bit of a lecture on car safety- My dad's a cop, what can I say?- and turned around to face our friend.

"Yay!" Cat grinned, bouncing around again. As I turned to face her too, she suddenly sprang forward and enveloped us both in a bone crunching hug. "I'm so, so happy that you two finally worked things out!"

"Yeah, yeah." Jade smiled, patting her red hair as Cat pulled away.

"We couldn't've done it without our little cupid." I added with a laugh.

"What's that supposed to mean!" Cat exclaimed, somehow taking that the wrong way.

"Uh, you know, cupid." I stuttered, taken aback by the outburst. "The little angel you see everywhere on Valentines Day."

"Ooh! I love that day!" Cat giggled. "It has the same name as me!"

Jade and I turned to each other with identical smirks then watched as the little red head clambered out of the car and skipped off to her house. We drove to mine after, which isn't too far from Cat's place, and, not wanting the day to end so suddenly, I invited my new girlfriend into the house, pleased to find the place empty as I began to make coffee for the both of us. I didn't drink coffee very often myself, but I had a feeling that I'd be drinking more and more the longer I was with Jade.

"Keep that cow juice away from my coffee!" Jade called from where she'd made herself at home on my sofa, just as I was about to pour milk into my own mug.

"I know!"

After putting the 'cow juice' back into the refrigerator, I walked over to where Jade was sat with her feet up on the table, which I nudged off so I could set the coffee down. She scowled playfully then patted the seat beside her to indicate I should sit down. I did, and her arm instantly snaked around my waist, pulling me in closer so my head and hand rested on her shoulder and I was looking up into her shimmering green eyes through my lashes. She pressed a soft, fleeting kiss to my forehead and sighed, making a bunch of butterflies explode in my stomach and a cheesy grin appear on my face.

"This is weird." She stated, the fingers on my hip tracing circles. "But good weird."

I nodded, shifting around a little so I could place a delicate kiss on the underside of her chin. Man, how I'd longed to be able to just nuzzle up to Jade and share moments like these and now that it was coming true, I wasn't sure if I could believe it. But all doubt was extinguished from my mind when a finger lifted my chin up and my lips were captured in a tender, lingering kiss. I felt Jade go to break away, but I didn't want her to, so I lent forward a bit, keeping the contact, which Jade obviously smirked at. My hand found its way to her hair, Jades arms wrapped around my middle, pushing each other closer as our lips moved together with a little more urgency.

The world disappeared once again, leaving nothing but Jade and I. It was blissful and beautiful and I could only wish we could stay like this forever. It amazed me how just a simple kiss could make me lose my mind, make my heart skip a beat and make that swarm of butterflies in my stomach go crazy. I would never be able to get enough of this.

A wetness brushed my bottom lip and I surrendered, allowing Jade to slide her tongue inside my mouth, carefully caressing my own in a way that made an uncontrollable moan sound from the back of my throat. Her fingertips wander up my back and mine fell from her hair to rest on her shoulders, our shallow breathing the only sound in the room until-

"Ew, keep the PDA's to a minimum while I'm around, will ya?"

_And_, the spell was broken just like that.

Of course, it had to be Trina to interrupt as she walked down the stairs and over to the kitchen to make herself some apple juice. I pulled away from Jade, my face on fire from a blush as I realised the noise I'd just made- damn, I needed to get my hormones under control! Curse being a teenager!- Out of the corner of my eye I could see Jade looking half annoyed, half amused.

"It wasn't a _public_ display of affection until you showed up." I grumbled.

"Yeah, and no one asked for you to be around." Jade added, grinning as she tugged me in so I was once again snuggled up to her. "Now beat it!"

Surprisingly, Trina did as told and quickly went back up to her room, taking the whole carton of apple juice with her. Once we'd heard her door close, Jade turned back to me with a questioning look.

"I expected that drama queen to scream at me and tell me to get out of the house when she found me making out with her little sister, not just brush it off like that."

I laughed. "I think she's okay with it, actually. She's been really supportive. It's been quite nice."

Jade made an impressed noise. "So she has the ability to stop thinking about herself?"

"Be nice!" I giggled, smacking her playfully on the shoulder. "But, yeah, it does seem so."

We stayed silent for a moment, just enjoying the embrace, but there was something niggling at the back of my mind. Trina knew about Jade and I, Cat obviously knew too and Beck knew to some degree, but what about everybody else? Andre, Robbie, other kids at school, our parents? Would they react as well as Trina and Cat, or get angry like Beck?

"Jade?" I asked, deciding to voice these concerns. "Are we going to tell anyone, about, you know… us?"

I felt Jade stiffen a little and prepared myself for her to bolt again, but was more than relieved when she didn't. Instead, the paler girl shifted us both around as we were face to face, her hands cupping my cheeks so we locked eyes.

"I've kept this a secret long enough." She said softly. "I say we tell people, or at least make it obvious, if that's okay with you?"

All I could do was nod again, stunned by Jade's sudden willingness to admit to our relationship. "But, how are we-"

"Going to tell them?" Jade finished for me, eyebrows raised slightly. "Well, Beck sort of knows, but I think we're going to have to talk to him seriously about it, so he can understand it's got nothing to do with him." She sighed. "I think Andre will take it alright, he seems to be pretty accepting, and as for Shapiro, well, he's none too bright, so I think we'll have to sit him down and explain to him about the birds and the bees… or just the birds, in this case." Jade smirked at her own joke and I chuckled lightly. "But I think we should wait 'til Monday at school, give us chance to think it though properly rather than have some big get-together coming out thing."

"A-at school?" I repeated, receiving a hum of confirmation. "But, what about everyone else?

I could see a plan already formulating behind Jade's eyes. "Leave them to me."

I opened my mouth, wanting to question her idea, but she spoke over me. "Now, let's watch a movie, yeah?"

Xxx

Jade left that night just before my parents came home, which was a good thing seeing as I was no where near ready to explain to them why I was cuddled up on the couch with the girl I was supposed to hate, suffering though one of my dads horror movies that Jade had found. I stupidly let her talk me into watching it and, admittedly, I kept my face hidden though most of the film, either behind my hands or buried in the crook of Jade's neck, the latter of which my girlfriend seemed to enjoy. I couldn't help but smile to myself whenever I thought of those words: 'my girlfriend', it felt unreal, yet so right to say.

Neither of us wanted her to go, but time was getting the better of us, with my parents saying they'd be back around eleven, so at ten to I kissed Jade goodbye on the door step with a promise that we'd meet up over the weekend, and watched as her car pulled out of my drive and disappeared off down the street.

Deciding I didn't want to wait around for my parents, I poured myself a glass of, the now affectionately named, 'cow juice' and headed on up to my bedroom. Before I could make it inside, however, I was stopped by Trina calling my name quietly from down the hall. I approached, confused, to find my sister with her head sticking out from her own bedroom door, her face bright green with whatever facial beauty mask thing she was trying out this week and I watched as a blog of the gunk dripped from her chin and landed with a splat on the laminated floor.

"Ew." I stated, taking a step back so none of it would get on me.

"Shut up." Trina replied. "I wanna say something serious."

"And how am I supposed to take you seriously with _that_ stuff all over your face?" I questioned.

"You just are!" Trina huffed, before her voice became soft. "Listen, Tori. I'm glad things worked out with Jade."

I grinned. "Thanks, Trina."

"I'm happy for you, Tori." She continued. "But I do want you to be careful; some people aren't quite as accepting as you or I"

I sighed, why did she have to bring up that downer? "I know, but I can handle myself. Besides, I think Jade would beat the crap out of anyone who makes any stupid remark."

"Me and her both." My sister said defensively, surprising me. "But, really, I want you to know that I'm here for you if anything happens, whether it's with stupid idiots, or Jade herself, I'm here if you need me."

A bubble of affection rose, almost making me tear up. It might not seem like it, but Trina's always been supportive and protective of me, ever since we were little kids, even being there to convince me to stay at Hollywood Arts when I thought about leaving after my first day. I made me so incredibly happy to know that she supported my relationship with another girl, Jade West, no less, and that she was here for me, no matter what. If it wasn't for the door blocking the way, or the dripping face mask, I would've happily pulled my sister into a hug right now.

"Thank you, Trina. That means so much" I said sincerely "I love you."

"I love you too, lil' sis" Trina said, reaching around her door to tap me on the nose. "Now, leave me alone, I have to get on with my beauty regime. It takes a lot of work to look this fantastic, you know!"

I rolled my eyes; back to typical Trina we go. With one last smile at my sister, I turned around and pretty much bounced to my bedroom with the renewed spring in my step. If only the world could be as accepting as she was.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Surprise! A quick update! I hope you like it! I hope it's not too rushed either =/  
>Much love! 3 <strong>


	19. Chapter 19

It was Saturday and I'd gotten out of bed surprisingly early for me, ready for the day ahead. Yesterday, before I left the Vega house, I'd promised to meet up with Tori over the weekend to hang around, watch a movie and junk, and just kind of get used to the idea that I didn't have to hide behind a mask of hating her anymore. I'd managed to make it though the day so far without my reflex kicking in once, which I consider an achievement when she dragged me off into some beauty store and managed to spray perfume in my eye. Tori had apologised profusely, saying over and over that it was an accident, and yeah, I was annoyed, but I knew she didn't mean it and I somehow managed to keep my anger at bay and accept her apology, which she seemed very grateful about.

Honestly, I was having a really good time. For once I just forgot about the world and focused on having a good time with my girlfriend. It was still so weird to even think that Tori was my girlfriend and I couldn't help my smile every time I did think it. She was turning me into a cheesy ball of cliché, but it felt good.

Now, we sat in the movie theatre and I was trying to remember exactly _why_ I'd let Tori pick what we were going to watch for this day out, as I was now stuck watching some sapping, lovey-dovey romantic tragedy thing while my girlfriend sat beside me, sniffling. Okay, so maybe I found it _extremely _cute when she sniffled, but no one will ever know that, besides, couldn't she sniffle over something that was half decent instead of this pile of garbage? The only good part was that the woman was slowly dying, so maybe I'd get a good death scene out of this. Not a 'slaughtered by a psycho' or 'run over by a herd of elephants' interesting death scene, but someone was going to die either way.

"Jade?"

I look to my left where Tori's timid voice issued from and smiled down at my girlfriend. "Yeah?"

"You hate this, don't you?" She gestured to the screen where the dying woman was now sat around a table gossiping with some other brainless bimbos.

"I've seen worse." I said with a shrug. "But I've definitely seen better."

This earned a shushing from another audience member just behind us, who I casually flipped off, happy to hear Tori giggle at my actions, but still slap my lightly on the arm, telling me to behave. If it were anyone else at any other time, I'm pretty sure I would rip their arm off for even attempting to tell me off, jokingly or otherwise, but there was something about Tori that made me let it slide and laugh right along with her. Hell, I wouldn't be sat here watching this damn stupid movie if it wasn't for her. I don't know how it happened, but Jade West was going soft and, well, I actually kinda liked it.

For the rest of the movie, to relieve my boredom, I'd mutter stupid comments under my breath about everything that was going on. At first, it was because I was sick of watching this woman blubber about her life ending, but with every comment I made, I could hear Tori laugh softly beside me and soon enough I was whispering stuff in her ear just to hear her giggle. Of course, Mr Shushy Pants wasn't pleased with this particular display and kept making his shushing sounds every time I opened my mouth, which was actually more annoying than the comments I was making in the first place.

To see if I could piss him off any further, during a particularly bad scene, where dying woman was trying to eat some guys' face in some attempt at kissing him; I grabbed Tori by the chin and pressed my lips firmly to hers in an imitation of what was happening on screen. However, in only a few short seconds, I'd totally forgotten about the movie and ending up full on making out with my girlfriend in the middle of the cinema, which I received absolutely no protest to, at least, not from Tori. Shushy Pants, on the other hand, made a strangled noise of disgust, got up and moved a few rows back, away from us. Victory!

"You're cruel." Tori stated as we walked out of the cinema together. Okay, maybe I did laugh and say _Finally!_ a little too loudly when that woman eventually kicked the bucket, but, hey, I was just glad it was over.

"You're just now figuring that out?" I grinned.

Suddenly, Tori darted behind my back and crouched down, trying to hide. Bewildered, I tried to look over my shoulder to figure out what on earth she was doing, but when that failed, I chose to look around the lobby to work out why the hell she was hiding.

"What's gotten into you!"

"It's the manager." Tori whispered, shuffling around so she couldn't be seen. "I may be banned from this place."

I let out a shout of laughter. "Banned! What were _you_ doing to get banned from a movie theatre, Vega!"

"Shush!" Tori said frantically. "It's not just me, it's Robbie, Andre and Cat too. Last time we were here, Rex started a popcorn war and Cat took it a little too far. I don't think I'm supposed to be here right now."

I laughed even harder. "That's it! Come on, Vega, that's nothing! He's probably forgotten all about it by now!"

To prove my point, I grabbed Tori's hand and marched her straight past the manager, who didn't even bat an eyelid as we went by. Tori had mumbled a protest and struggled a little bit at first, but when she realised he wasn't going to have security jump her, she let out a sigh of relief. Once away from him, I turned to her, eyebrows raised, arms crossed and smirking.

"I may still be banned from this place!" I repeated in my Tori mocking voice.

"Shut up." She grumbled, shoving me in the shoulder. "And I don't talk like that!"

This only made my smirk grow. "Come on. Let's go grab some coffee so I can get the vile aftertaste of the movie out of my mouth."

Tori mumbled something about it not being that bad, but I'd stopped listening. We were stood just a little away from the doors of the cinema and I watched as Beck and some blonde walked out, the girl clutching onto his arm and giggling away while he leaned in close to her, whispering something in her ear. They turned in the opposite direction and walked away, not before Beck looked up, his laughing smile turning to more of a gloating smirk when he caught my eye. I didn't know how to feel. It was a shock to see him so unexpectedly, especially with some random girl practically drooling all over him. I wondered if she was part of his fan club that he suddenly decided to date, but just the other day he said he loved me still… how did he get over that so fast? This is all too weird.

My mind was in overdrive. I barely felt the tugging on my sleeve to get my attention.

"WHAT!" I yelled, spinning around so I was face to face with Tori, who was now wide eyed with surprise, and possibly fear, at my outburst.

"Y-you spaced out suddenly." She stuttered, a hint of hurt in her voice. "I just wanted to check if you were okay."

Shit. "Yeah, uh, sorry." I muttered. "It was just, uh-"

"Beck." Tori finished for me in an unrecognisable tone. So she'd seen him too.

"Yeah." I sighed, not sure what else to say, what else to feel, but before I _could _say any more, Tori's hand, still holding the sleeve of my jacket, gave another tug, pulling me so we walked side by side down the street in search of the coffee shop we'd passed on the way here. It was a little place, tucked away on a street corner and when I spotted it earlier, I almost slammed on the brakes. I don't know what it was, but I was instantly drawn to the place in a single glance.

Tori was completely silent next to me and I instantly knew something was off. We'd been having so much fun all day, laughing and joking, but as soon as Beck made an appearance, the mood went, just like _that._

"What's wrong?" I asked, stopping in my tracks in the middle of the sidewalk.

It took Tori a few moments to realise I wasn't moving and she walked back to me with her hands shoved deep into her pockets, shrugging. "What?"

"Don't play dumb, Vega. What's wrong? The second you mentioned Beck, you went all, I dunno… cold."

She shrugged again.

"Tori." I sighed, exasperated.

"Fine!" Tori huffed. She started to walk off again and I had to hurry to keep up with her. "You went all weird when you saw Beck, like you were jealous or something. I dunno, it was just-"

"Tori." I repeated, cutting her off by grabbing hold of her arm and stopping her again. I couldn't believe it! Was Tori Vega _jealous_? Did she think I still had feelings for Beck? "It's not anything like that, okay!"

"Oh, isn't it?" Tori said, trying to wriggle free of my grasp, but I held her in place.

"No! It's not!" I hissed. "If I still loved Beck like that, do you really think I'd be here with you right now?"

Tori must have taken that completely the wrong way as she managed to break free from my clutch and stormed off. _Way to put your foot in it, Jade._

I'm pretty sure our personalities got switch around some how, because it would usually be _me_ doing the 'storming off out of jealousy' thing while Vega did the running after. Instead, I was now chasing the half-Latina down the street, growling as I caught her arm once again and roughly pulled her around to face me. She glared at me, a slight pout on her lips. Dammit! She looked so adorable when she was sulking like that, pretty much all of my anger drained away. Instead of yelling, as planned, I tugged her forward and placed a quick kiss to her forehead. God, I _had_ gone soft.

"I didn't mean it like that, Tori" I murmured against her before pulling away so I could look into her eyes. This being nice to Tori thing was getting easier, thankfully. "It's just… I'm not… _good_ with all these feelings. I'm so used to having Beck hanging around me, even after we split up, that it was odd seeing him with someone else. I promise you, it's not like that. We're over. Done. Kaput. I don't want him back. So there's no reason for you to be mad at me."

Tori bit her lip, exhaling softly though her nose before practically jumping at me, wrapped her arms around me in a hug. I stumbled, still not used to her sudden bursts of affection like this, but I hugged her back all the same, pleased she had gotten over the irrational jealously.

"I'm sorry." She said, stepping away from me now. "I over reacted. I guess, I just thought… you and Beck were together for so long… I wouldn't blame you-"

I pressed a finger over her lips, instantly stopping her rambling. "I don't feel that way for him anymore, Tori. I really don't. Don't worry."

She grinned, nodding. "Shall we go get that coffee, then?"

"Definitely" I grinned, shoving Beck to the back of my mind and setting back off towards the coffee shop.

Xxx

Saturday flew by too fast for my liking. We found the little coffee shop and ended up hanging out there for a good hour, talking, laughing, and drinking their cheap coffee which was surprisingly good. I marked it down as a place I'd have to visit again, with and without Tori by my side, but mostly the former.

Sunday, so far, sucked. My stepmoms parents decided to come for a visit from Wisconsin, as they do every year or something, and for some unknown reason they wanted me around while they were there. Like my step mother, I never got on well with them, all they cared about was money and reputation, getting a good job and being snobs, basically. I had to play nice in front of them whenever they visited, which usually went down well, me being an actress and all, so I usually just pretended it was an assignment for class just so I could make it through the long, boring hours.

This Sunday, however, I was really in no mood for them. As pathetic as this sounds, I just wanted to go see Tori. I think it's the new relationship thing, where you want to spend all your time with each other, so _not_ being able to see her and having to spend time with people I hate put me in a foul mood.

So, I decided to mess with them. I put on a very over the top nice act, reminiscent of the sweet farm girl character I was forced to play during the sleepover at Sikowitz's house. This utterly bewildered everyone in the room, especially when I offered to make them all drinks and came back without poison in their cups. But, soon enough, my father got fed up of this act and pulled me to one side telling me I to 'stop being so childish' and I 'better drop it or else'. I smiled and said "Sure!" before spending the rest of the time as a dramatised version of how everyone saw me: loud, rude, angry, mean, I even ended up dumping lemonade on my sisters head at one point. 'Accidentally', of course, but hilarious.

Dad pretty much threw me out after that. He stuffed a few bills in my hand and told me to go enjoy the day somewhere else instead of humiliating him in front of the in-laws, who, may I add, aren't that much older than him anyway. I despised that.

However, my plan to get away had worked, and I made it to the Vega house just a few minutes later, feeling pretty proud of myself. As per usual, their door wasn't locked, so I walked right on in to find Tori and Trina stood in the kitchen, apparently in the middle of an argument. Tori had her back to me and Trina wasn't paying any attention, so I sat soundlessly down on the couch in front of the tv to watch them.

"If you knew that it was my cupcake, Trina, then why did you eat it?" Tori yelled in her sisters' face. Really? That's what they were arguing about?

"I was hungry!" Trina whined in return. Well, no duh.

"Then _why_ eat _my_ cupcake? There's plenty of other food in the house!"

"Because it looked so yummy! And I've already eaten mine so…" Trina trailed off when she finally noticed me sat on their couch, feet up on the table and a smirk on my face. Her mouth hung open a little in surprise, so I gave her a little wave of greeting to hopefully stop her staring.

Tori, confused by her sisters' sudden lack of talking, which is very rare when it came to Trina, whirled around on the spot to see what had stopped her and now looked equally as shocked to find me in their house.

"Can I get a cupcake?" I asked in my southern accent, complete with batting my eyelids and pouting.

"I don't talk like that!" Tori huffed, her automatic response to anything I said with that accent, and broke out of her trance to stomp her foot on the ground. She's too easy to wind up. "Beside, you couldn't have a cupcake if you really wanted one, seeing as Trina ate the last one!"

"It didn't have your name on it!" Trina protested, stomping her foot just like her sister.

"It didn't have your name on it either!"

"Oi!" I yelled, trying not to laugh at their stupidity. I got up from my seat and walked over to the two sisters. "As much as I'd _love_ to see you two battle to the death over a cupcake, I feel I should stop you both before I get blamed for any bloodshed that may happen."

"Oh, so this has nothing to do with you wanting to protect me from the mean girl who stole my dessert?" Tori asked with a grin as she wandered over to stand in behind of me, hiding from her sister.

I shrugged, smirking. "I dunno, I'm with Trina on this one. She was hungry, wanted the cupcake and ate it. It didn't have you name on it so- OW!"

Tori whacked me on the shoulder, not hard at all, but I wanted to make her feel bad for hitting me. She was trying to scowl and be annoyed at me for siding with Trina, but I could easily tell she wasn't, so I rubbed at the spot she thumped, pouting.

"Well, that was just plain mean!" I said in my southern bell accent again.

"I. Don't. Talk. Like. That!" Tori said, striking me playfully on the arm with every word.

"Alright, alright, easy Vega." I said, catching her wrists in my hands so she could do no more damage. "Lets say, I run to the store and pick up a whole bunch of cupcakes, treats and stuff with the 20 bucks my dad gave me to leave the house, and by the time I get back, there's a _good_ movie in the dvd player ready for us to watch, yeah?"

Tori's fake scowl instantly changed to a toothy grin.

"Uh, what about me?" Trina asked, as if the world revolved around her. I fished about in my pocket and pulled out one of the $5 bills my dad gave me, stuffing it in her hand before patting her mockingly on the cheek.

"Go treat yourself, darling, I heard they're giving away free makeovers at the mall." They weren't, as far as I know, but if it got her out of the house-

"They are!"

Bingo! Trina had raced out of the house and was gone in about 5 seconds flat. Tori and I stared after her for another 5 seconds before we both burst out laughing. The Vega sisters sure were entertaining.

"Okay, okay." I said, being the first to calm down. I turned to Tori, my smirk still in place. "So, that movie?"

"Those cupcakes?" She said, raising an eyebrow.

I shook my head. "Fine. I'll be about in 10 minutes." I strolled across the room while Tori walked over to the tv, looking though the Vega's pile of dvds. "And you better pick a good movie, or I'm making you watch another one of your dad's horror flicks!"

Tori cringed. "Yeah, yeah. Just go and get the food, will ya!"

As I stepped out of the front door, I heard Tori call after me and, seconds later, she appeared by my side. "Wait, Jade! Buy me some liquorice?"

"Liquorice?"

"And I'll give you a kiss!" She grinned, putting on a really bad accent, an obvious attempt to imitate me imitating her. Tori stood up on her tip toes to peck me on the cheek before skipping back into the house. I rolled my eyes, remembering the time I said that to mock her and couldn't help but smile to myself.

Xxx

I came back to the Vega place not long later, a bag full of various sweets in hand. I let myself in, of course, and began to walk over to the kitchen to dump all of my stuff, only to freeze mid-step, staring at the couch where Tori sat, but she wasn't alone.

"Yay! Cupcakes!" Cat giggled, jumping up from her seat to grab the bag from my hands and rummage through it. I raised my eyebrows at her then turned to Tori, hands on my hips.

"I couldn't stop her." Tori said, biting her lip. "Sorry."

"Whatever." I shrugged,a little annoyed as I walking around the couch to sit beside Tori, slinging an arm around her shoulder, which she snuggled into, her fingers linking with mine. Don't get me wrong, I love Cat, she's like a little sister to me, but sometimes she could get right on my nerves. Like now, just turning up out of the blue and ruining my plans to spend time with Tori. _Just _Tori. There would be no getting rid of her now, especially not with cupcakes involved.

"So, what are we watching?" I asked.

"The Lion King!" Cat bounced back to her seat, chewing on her cake and giggling as she looked over at us. "Aw! You two look so cute together!"

I pulled a face and, out of the corner of my eye, saw Tori give me a cheesy grin, poking me in the cheek. "Jade's cute!" She laughed in a sing song voice.

"I don't do _cute_." I groaned.

"Yeah, you do! Cat thinks so and I think so, so you do!"

Oh, God. Was my whole night going to be like this?

"Can we just watch the movie and stop discussing how 'cute' I am?" I asked, air quoting the word cute.

"So, you admit you're cute?"

"Vega." I growled in a warning tone.

She instantly dropped the subject and pressed play on the dvd remote. I couldn't complain about the movie choice, really. The Lion King was a guilty pleasure of mine, Scar being one of my all time favourite villains. I grew up on the movie and practically knew it by heart, so it didn't surprise me when I caught myself miming along to every word and every song.

Whenever the Hyena's or Scar would come on screen, Cat would squeal and hide behind the pillow she was holding. When Mufasa died, she actually burst into tears as Vega sniffled beside me once again, but I forgave her this time, at least this was a good film with a sad death.

Somehow, before the movie had finished playing, Cat fell asleep in her chair, the pillow still cuddled close to her body and an almost purr like noise issuing from her slightly open mouth whenever she breathed out.

Tori smiled over at the sleeping red head. "You know, I love Cat, but she can be-"

"Odd." I finished for her, earning a nod. "Yeah, but we still love her for it."

Another nod. Tori nuzzled up closer to me, her head resting on my shoulder, buried in the crook of my neck. She was super affectionate, I knew that just by seeing her with Ryder and that Steven guy, hell, she was even all touchy feely with our group of friends, maybe not as much as Cat, but the girl just loved that type of attention. It's not like I hated it, I just wasn't used to it. I'd never snuggle up to Beck like this, but to have someone do it to me, it was kinda nice.

"Jade?" Tori murmured, the fingers of her hand resting by her head were picking idly at the collar of my shirt.

"Tori?" I replied, shifting to look at her better.

"Are we, you know-" She hesitated. "Are we still going to tell everyone about us at school tomorrow?"

I'd forgotten all about that. No matter what I said before, I wasn't sure if I was ready to tell everyone about me and Vega. I'm used to people gossiping about me behind my back, about how I'm the big, bad, scary witch of Hollywood Arts, about how I probably ate little children for breakfast- yeah, some idiot's really said that- and other general, untrue crap that the morons at my school come up with. Tori hadn't been subjected to that kind of thing just yet, any gossip I heard about her was all good, but coming out and saying you're dating the girl that the whole school knows you're supposed to hate… I didn't have a clue what everyone's reaction would be.

"Jade?" Tori asked again when I didn't respond. She pulled away from me and sat up straight. "I'm sorry. If you're not ready for that yet then-"

"It's not that." I cut in. "I- I just don't know how everyone will react. Some of the kids at Hollywood Arts can be pretty vicious, so, if they find out the juicy gossip that you and I are dating, they'll find some way of using it against us."

"I'm pretty used to that." Tori said. "I seem to remember someone looking up my medical records to sabotage me for getting the lead role in a play."

Ah, she had me there. I'd been a gank to her before all of this started to happen, so I guess she was used to some of the worst Hollywood Arts had to offer. "Alright. But, I dunno. I still think we should talk to Andre and Robbie about it first before anyone else finds out. And Beck-"

I stopped. I hadn't forgotten seeing him at the theatre with that blonde chick. What was the idiot doing? Was she some sort of rebound? I may not love him like that anymore, but I still cared for the guy, we were together for two years after all, there are still feelings there.

"And Beck needs to understand this isn't about him." I finished.

"So, we'll talk to them tomorrow?" Tori looked hopeful, I couldn't let her down.

"We'll talk to them tomorrow."

I lent down to press a quick kiss to her lips, ignoring the sudden nervous butterflies in my stomach. Contrary to popular belief, I do care what people think of me. I don't care about the stupid rumours like I sleep in a coffin, or have severed heads for candle holders; in fact, I like to encourage those stupid rumours just to see what people would do. This, on the other hand, was a whole different kettle of fish. So far we'd been greeted with a lot of support for our relationship, with my ex-boyfriend as the downside, but I guess that was understandable. Would it be so easy for a bunch of egotistical, fame hungry school kids to accept us?

* * *

><p><strong>AN: I struggled so bad with this chapter it feels like I rambled on about nothing =P  
>Once again, thank you everyone for the reviews and what not xD Much appreciated. Keep 'em coming!<br>P.S: The Lion King is my favourite film of all time, I just had to make a reference. Especially after Liz's tweet about watching it in 3D and her love for Scar ;)**


	20. Chapter 20

**Tori POV**

The bright LA sun was streaming through my window, its rays blinding me even through my closed eyes, reluctantly waking me from my peaceful slumber. Usually, I was pretty good with mornings, but I had been enjoying a sweet dream and didn't want it to end, so I rolled over and buried my face into the pillow, screwing my eyes shut, determined to continue where the dream left off. It involved Jade, who had become a regular visitor to my night time visions, but as the last remainders of my tired mind slipped away, the dream followed, and I couldn't for the life of me remember what had been happening.

The annoyed groan that issued from my mouth was muffled by the soft cushion beneath me and it was with great effort that I rolled over and kicked the duvet from my body, only to be instantly hit by the cool air in my room, causing me to shiver. I stumbled from my bed, a little bleary eyed, and was greeted by my tired looking reflection in my closet mirror: hair wild from tossing and turning in my sleep, my posture slumped- something Trina would no doubt tell me off for- and my heavy lidded eyes blinking back at me. So much for being a morning person, but I guess after so long without getting any proper sleep, too busy caught up in worries over a certain dark haired girl, it's all bound to catch up with you in the end.

My mouth twitched into a smile; Jade. There was nothing to worry about there anymore; at least, I hoped there wasn't. This past weekend had felt like a dream, a page out of somebody else's life, something I had only hoped for and never believed I would get. But it was all real and was still happening, maybe even at school now.

To say I was nervous about telling Andre and Robbie would be an understatement. Sure, they're our friends and I'd like to think they'd accept us no matter what, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a lot to get your head around: Tori Vega and Jade West, the two girls who are supposed to hate each other, constantly fighting and trying to outdo the other, are now dating? It still sounds weird to me, and I'm involved.

I get myself ready for school, racing to the shower and only just managing to beat Trina to it, taking extra long just to annoy her; her banging on the door and whining about ruining her morning beauty routine are easy to ignore under the sound of the pouring water and my obnoxiously loud shower singing, which I did just to bug her further. She got her own back, though, when she shoved her way into the bathroom as I was on my way out and slammed the door, causing the corner of my towel to get caught and stuck. After several minutes of tugging and shouting at my sister for being a moron, I gave a vicious pull, just as Trina re-opened the door to yell at me for yelling at her. I tumbled backwards and fell on my butt, sprawled all over the floor, groaning at the impact.

"That is _so_ unladylike, Tori." Trina said, her hair dripping all over the floor where her head was poking around the door frame.

Blushing, I growled at her, adjusting my towel securely around my body before storming off as dignified as my bruised behind would let me, back to my room to get dressed, keen to avoid her for the rest of the morning so there was no more stupid incidence like that one.

"So, what are you and your new little girlfriend going to do?" Trina asked an hour later- making us late leaving- when she finally finished getting ready at the house and began to drive us to school, still putting lip gloss on, and watching her reflection in the rear view mirror.

"What, about school?"

"No, about which one of you wants to become the new Pope, of course about school" my sister rolled her eyes then violently yanked on the steering wheel to stop the car drifting into the other lane.

"Concentrate on the road!" I shrieked, pinching the lip gloss from her grasp and chucking it into the dashboard compartment so she would pay attention.

"Don't worry, little sis', I'm an excellent driver!" Trina claimed. "It's everyone else who sucks- WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" She added to a car on the other side of the road that had to swerve to avoid her. Its times like these I can't wait to pass my drivers test so I won't have to risk my life with every journey to school.

Trina turned back to me with a grin "And you didn't answer my question!"

I sighed. "I dunno. We're going to talk to Andre and Robbie about it today, because they don't know a thing, but as for everyone else…"

I trailed off and the two of us remained silent for a little while, only the radio, quietly playing Lady Gaga's Born This Way, could be heard. I remembered when that song first came out; Cat had such an obsession with it that for an entire week you'd find her skipping down the corridors at school, belting out the lyrics at the top of her voice. Her happy mood and cheery, fantastic singing voice, although a little annoying after a while, eventually infected everyone so much that I even caught Jade murmuring along to the words one lunch time, after she'd assured us that she hated it.

I was shaken out of my memory when we stopped at a red light and Trina turned to me yet again, a slight look of concern lining her features.

"What do you think people will say when they find out about, you know, you and Jade?"

"No idea. They'll probably all think it's some big joke." I shrugged, sinking back in the seat, feeling defeated.

It had crossed my mind numerous times what everyone else would say and the conclusion I always came to was they'd think we were just messing with them. Going to a performing arts school there are often kids running around trying to convince everyone about something or other, whether it be them saying they landed a role in a major movie or that they met Johnny Depp in a restaurant and he told them they'd be a star someday (the latter being something Trina had once said). So, as much as rumours and gossip were believed, anything straight from the horses' mouth was usually put down to attention seeking and easily dismissed, which made Jade and I confirming our relationship all the more difficult.

"Look." Trina reached over to put her hand on my knee, patting it lightly. "Whatever they say, it shouldn't matter, as long as the two of you are happy, right?"

I smiled. "Yeah, thanks, Trina."

She nodded, her eyes refocusing on the road as we neared the school parking lot.

"Trina?" I furrowed my eyebrows, needing to ask something that had been nagging at me for a little while.

"Yeah?"

"Where's all this concern and care coming from all of a sudden?"

She pulled haphazardly into a parking space before turning her wide eyes to me, carefully sculpted eyebrows raised. "All of a sudden! You're my sister, Tori, I've _always_ cared about you." I beamed at her and she shook her head a little before continuing. "Beside, we do go to the same school now, so you've got _my _reputation to keep as well as your own, so I've got to keep you in check, don't I?" Trina laughed, but I had the feeling she wasn't entirely joking, and then punched me lightly in the arm. "Welp, come on! We can't stay in the car all day!"

With that she hopped out of the car, slamming the door into the car next to us in the process. I got out more carefully, watching Trina as she glanced around the parking lot to see if anyone had noticed, then, with a mumble of 'They can buff that out", she swiftly made her way into the school. I rolled my eye, but followed all the same.

Xxx

Sikowitz's class was the first time I saw any of my friends that day. Thanks to Trina making us late this morning, I hadn't had chance to meet up with them as we did almost every morning at school, and none of them were in my first lesson of the day, R&B vocals, so I couldn't help but feel disappointed that I was yet to talk to any of them. Especially Jade, after almost the whole weekend together, I was already missing her presence.

I was so excited when I skipped into Sikotwitz's classroom that I managed to walk right into Andre, who was stood in the middle of the room, busy playing with his Pear Phone.

"Well, hey, Tori Vega! Fancy bumping into you!" He greeted with a laugh, pulling me into a one armed hug while his eyes remained firming fixed on the small screen in his hand.

"Hey, Andre!" I squeezed him back, while scanning the room for a sign of my girlfriend, before pulling away. "Wat'cha doing there?"

"Textin' this girl I met on the weekend" He grinned, finally looking up from the phone. "Her name's Melissa. I met her at the mall, asked her if she wanted to go to The Grove-"

Andre's explanation of his weekend and wild hand gestures that accompanied it were quickly cut short by our acting teacher bursting into the classroom; the door crashing into the wall then bouncing off again as he flung it open in his enthusiasm. Most of the class jumped in surprise, Andre and I included, while everyone else just stared at the man, wide eyed.

He looked… normal. Dressed up in a suit and tie, hair combed back neatly on his head. Everybody's eyes followed him as he walked up the aisle between the rows of chairs to the middle of the stage.

"You like?" Sikowitz asked before he finally did something more… Sikowitz-like and twirled around on the spot, arms high above his head like a ballerina.

Somehow, I was the first to recover. "You look, uh-"

"Still as crazy as ever."

This time everyone in the room span around to see Jade barge through the still open door, a scowl adorning her face. She strutted past, placing a hand on my shoulder when she was near that made my heart skip, until she roughly shoved me to one side.

"Move, Vega. You're blocking the way."

I would've been hurt at this sudden mean gesture, if she hadn't looked back over her shoulder and flashed me the hint of a smile that always made my heart melt, and winked. If I'd been concentrating less on her and more on my feet, I'm pretty sure I wouldn't've stumbled and fallen right into the lap of the seated person nearest: Sinjin.

"Hi, Tori." He said slowly, emphasising the creepiness in his voice.

I instantly bolted upright again, my face turning scarlet as the class around me sniggered at my unfortunate landing. Once again, my eyes found Jade, who was grinning in amusement and I scowled playfully at her before taking my usual seat at the front of class.

"Alright, children! Now that we've all found our own seats" Sikowitz smirked at me. "We shall get on with today's lesson, which is about…" The acting teacher began to stomp his feet, which were actually covered in a smart pair of shoes today, on the ground in a drum roll, copied immediately by the rest of the class. "Appearances! And how they can be… deceiving."

He beamed down at us all, arms held out wide as he turned slowly on the spot again, showing off his suit.

"So, if none of you knew me and saw me walking down the street, what would your first impression of me be? Cat!"

"You're a pirate!" Cat called out.

Sikowitz blinked. "Pardon?"

"A pirate!" She giggled at our confused looks. "One time, my brother went to a fancy dress party as a pirate, but he couldn't find a pirate costume, so he wore a suit. But, then he decided he wasn't a pirate anymore."

Everyone in the room gawked at Cat before Sikowitz called for our attention again. "So, anyway, your first impressions of me, Tori!"

"Uh, you look kind of like a business man on the way to work." I supplied, receiving small murmurs of agreement from the rest of the class.

"Thank you!" Sikowitz cried, his smile so wide you could practically see all of his teeth. "You would never expect that I am, in fact, an acting teacher at the wondrous high school Hollywood Arts, would you?" We all shook our heads. "Exactly! And you wouldn't suspect that I actually dress just like this!"

There was the harsh sound of Velcro ripping as Sikowitz tore the suit from his body to reveal his 'normal' attire underneath. He tossed the material to one side then kicked the shoes off; wiggling his now free toes and ruffled his combed hair back to the state it was usually in. "Ah, that's much better!"

The rest of the lesson continued with Sikowitz talking to us about how some characters are shown in one light at the beginning of movies and shows, but by the end of it you find there are totally different to what you first believed and how slowly building up to this keeps the viewer interested throughout the performance. Even though this wasn't usually his area of teaching, Sikowitz explained to us that it's important for us, as actors, to keep in mind the true identity of our character and that dropping oh so subtle hints, be it in body language or otherwise, is always a good thing to do.

The end of the lesson came slowly and the bell rang just as Beck, Eli and Cat finished the scene they were doing on stage. It was the first time I'd seen Beck since the cinema but he still looked as laid back and nonchalant as ever, breezing through the improv like it was nothing. We were quickly dismissed and, as my chair is right at the front, I was usually the last to leave, so it was a little surprising when I found Jade hanging back, waving a hand to tell Cat to leave while the other fiddled with the content of her bag. Although preoccupied, the goth girl kept glancing up at me as I approached.

"Hey." I said cautiously when I was near, unsure how to treat the situation. We were in school, I didn't want to make things too obvious yet, but it looked a lot like Jade was waiting for me.

"Hey." She replied simply, still rummaging in her bag, but before any more could be said, Sikowitz approached us slowly, his eyes lingering on the door as the last of the students filed out.

"Tori, Jade." He stated, giving my shoulder a quick clap as he wandered past. "I must say congratulations! You two took your time!"

We both turned to him, eyebrows simultaneously raised in confusion.

"What do you mean, 'took our time'? With what?" Jade asked, now dropping her bag to her side.

He smirked at us. "Some things happen for a reason, like my lessons and when I teach certain things, or, say, the picking of project partners." Sikowitz reached the door and took a long sip from his coconut, twirling the fruit around in his fingers afterward. "The milk gives me visions, you know" He added, winking at us both before abruptly leaving.

Jade and I stood glancing at each other then staring at the doorway, mouths hanging open in a mixture of surprise and confusion. _Did he mean what I think he just meant?_ Before either of us could think any more on what had just happened, Cat and Robbie both appeared at the door, hurrying us both out to get to break.

Xxx

"…so, then I walked her home and she gave me a kiss on the cheek as a thank you before she went inside. She's a real sweet girl. We're gunna meet up again this weekend!"

Andre was busy finishing off the story about his weekend, but I was only half listening. We were sat at our usual table at the Asphalt Café, Cat to my right, Jade to my left, Robbie, Andre and, to my surprise, Beck, all sat across from us. I shouldn't really be surprised by Beck's presence, he is still our friend after all, but after the past few days, I thought he'd be avoiding us. Maybe he's handling it better than I expected.

"So, how'd you guys spend your weekend?" Andre asked now his tale was over.

"I met this girl, too." Beck said, taking a slurp of his drink. I felt Jade shift beside me "Her name's Delilah-"

"Like the song!" Robbie interrupted, before starting a very off-tune rendition "_Hey there, Delilah-_"

"No, not like the song." Beck spoke over him, putting a stop to his noise. "We went out on Saturday, caught a movie, had something to eat… She's a cool girl, but I don't see anything happening there."

He looked up across the table, his eyes briefly shifting to Jade before he looked back down again. My stomach twisted uncomfortably at this, but it was instantly settled when I felt a hand in my palm, cool fingers tangling with my own discreetly under the table. It was my turn to flick my eyes in Jade's direction, giving her a quick smile and receiving one in return, before turning my attention back to the conversation at hand.

"I went to the movies too!" Cat chimed in. "Oh, no, wait, that was the dentist."

We all gawped at her. Again.

"Anyway." Andre said after a moment of baffled silence. "What about you guys, Tori, Jade?"

We both hesitated; Jade gave my fingers a soft squeeze under the table before clearing her throat. I tensed, guessing what she was about to do. Were we really ready for this? Was _I_ ready for this? My heart pounded nervously in my chest and my mouth felt dry, a tad overdramatic maybe, but I can't help my body's reactions. This wasn't exactly how I pictured things playing out, but, I guess we hadn't really planned anything either, we said we'd just go with the flow and see where it took us. Oh God, I'm panicking, _shut up, brain, shut up_!

There was a buzz of silence at the table as the others waited for a response.

"Actually, we went to the cinema, too." Jade answered for us. Next to me Cat was beaming, Beck was staring solidly at the table while both Andre and Robbie looking confused and curious.

"What, the two of you? Together?" Robbie asked, looking between us for confirmation.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, nodding my head, "Y-yeah, it was my idea." I said in a murmur, one anxious look to Jade who nodded for me to continue. "Kind of like… a date."

"Date!" The two confused boys repeated together. To my right, Cat was giggling into her palm as I nodded again.

"Yeah, a date." Jade said harshly. "Got a problem with that?"

"You're yanking my chain, girl!" Rex piped up unexpectedly, the first thing I heard him say all day. "You two, on a date! Who bribed you into that, and how much are they paying?"

"Hush, puppet!" Jade growled, tossing her fork at his head, which hit him squarely between the eyes. "No one bribed us to do anything! We went because we wanted to! Tori and I are-" She took a deep breath. "Tori and I are girlfriends."

A stunned silence followed, but it was soon broken by the two boys' sudden roars of laughter, Robbie throwing his head back while Andre pounded his fist upon the table, earning many strange looks from everyone else in the area.

Well, that certainly wasn't the reaction I was hoping for.

I felt Jades grip on my hand tighten and a quiet, snarl like sound broke from her throat. Despite the circulation to my fingers being cut off, I managed to free my thumb enough to rub circles over the back of her palm in an effort to calm her down. It worked, to some degree, but the look she wore told us she wanted nothing more than to murder our two friends for their responses.

"You… you expect us to believe… you and Tori…" Andre gasped, his cheek now pressed against the table.

"It's. Not. A. Joke." Jade hissed through gritted teeth.

I squeezed her hand again. "Jade…"

"But…but you _hate_ each other!" Robbie panted over me, still shaking with laughter.

See, this is exactly how I expected everyone else to react: _But you hate each other, but Jade dated Beck, but, you're both girls…_This wasn't how I expected my friends to react. Especially not Andre. In all the time we've known each other and become the best of friends, I would've though he, of all people, would know when I was being serious about something, and this was as serious as I could get.

Jade's breathing had become harsh, I could see her fighting to control her anger and not launch at them, pounding both boys until they were black and blue. I knew she wasn't one for physical violence, more threats and cruel words, but the vein popping in her forehead said otherwise and it was taking all my power to keep up the comforting circling motions of my thumb to stop both her, and myself, doing something we'd regret.

"They don't hate each other anymore!" Cat shouted defensively before either of us could talk. She was pouting, her hands balled into fists as she glared at Robbie and Andre, which, for some reason, only made the boys laugh even harder.

"You got Cat in on this too?" Andre cackled as he clapped Beck on the back. "Come on, man, how can you not find this funny?"

Beck's expression was unreadable and firm as he shrugged his shoulders. "Because it's true." He stated, his calm, honest tone instantly putting a stop to their jubilation.

"W-What?" Andre managed to stutter, his forehead creased in further confusion. "Beck, I know you're a great actor and all, but don't mess with us like that! There's no way Tori and Jade…"

"Are dating?" Jade finished for him. "Well, believe this one, Harris."

Before I could really process the situation, Jade's free hand reached up from where it was resting on her knee to cup my cheek as she turned to face me. My breath caught and my eyes widened as she gave me the sweetest of smiles, with a look that said 'trust me' and leaned in to capture my lips in a gentle kiss, right in the middle of the Asphalt Café. It took me a second to get over my initial shock and kiss her back, the collective gasps of everyone bearing witness only a dull noise the background as I felt my girlfriend smile against my lips. We stayed like that for a few moments, our lips brushing slowly over each other and I could taste the warm coffee still on her lips, a taste I was getting used to, but always enjoyed.

Jade pulled away hesitantly, her fingers trailing down my cheek, past my chin before finally dropping to her lap. She was smiling again, one of those rare smiles you hardly ever see from her, and I was still trying to comprehend what was going on, probably looking equally as shocked as everybody who was now surrounding us. The hand still laced with mine shifted slightly and this time I felt her thumb rubbing small circles over my skin, a calming effect that seemed to work equally well for both of us because I let out a breath I didn't realise I'd been holding, my shoulders sinking as I relaxed.

"I- I stand corrected." Andre stammered in a voice that was higher than usual, owing to the shock. I finally tore my eyes away from Jade to look at him, his mouth agape, just like pretty much everyone else in the area. "Well, that was… unexpected."

"They're so cute together, aren't they!" Cat giggled, a giant grin plastered across her face. Jade rolled her eyes at the comment.

By now, I think the whole school had gathered outside in the café. Well, maybe not the _whole_ school, but I could see a lot of people whom I knew, including Ryder Daniels, who I hadn't spoken to since I humiliated him in front of the very same people now gawping at me and my new girlfriend. He too had his mouth hanging open and when he caught my eye, I shot him a smug smile before turning away, not caring what that idiot had to say. I caught sight of Sikowitz not too far from him, who flashed me a quick smile before returning to casually sipping on his coconut milk.

"So, you're actually _together_ together, like a couple?" Robbie asked once he'd recovered, a little slow on the uptake as always.

"Why don't you give us more proof, for those who didn't quite get it the first time?" Rex suggested, this time earning himself a half empty can of soda to the chest, only, it was thrown by me. Jade laughed heartedly as Robbie desperately tried to clean up the sticky, soggy mess now sloshed over his puppet, squeezing my hand in approval for the action.

The silence that had been pressing upon us for the past few minutes rapidly turned to babble and murmurs as the news of what had happened now made its way through the school, to those who weren't there to witness Jade West and Tori Vega lock lips. People were whispering behind their hands, continually glancing and pointing in our direction and I felt my face heat up in a blush. Beside me, Jade stood up on the bench, a glare set in place as she cast her eyes around at all the people there.

"OI!" She yelled at the top of her voice, causing the whole place to immediately fall silent. "If any of you have a problem with this, then come say it to our faces or, so help me, I'll rip out your tongues and make you watch as I feed them to a Rottenheimer!"

"Rottweiler." I muttered.

"A Rottweiler, then!"

No one moved or made a sound of objection, but as Jade, now satisfied, began to sit down, Beck abruptly stood up and turned on his heal, storming away from the table and back towards the school, sparking the chatter of students back up again.

"Forget about him." Jade said under her breath, annoyance evident in her voice.

"No, Jade. You said we should talk to him." I whispered back, a sting of guilt hitting me. "Just… you stay here, I'll go."

Before Jade could protest, I was on my feet, chasing after my girlfriends ex-boyfriend, determined to sort this out once and for all.

Xxx

"Beck?"

Unlike Jade, who I always knew to find in the janitor's closet whenever she ran off, I had no idea where Beck would go. After a few minutes of me searching the school, asking random people if they'd seen him, I finally found the long haired boy sitting in his usual chair in Sikowitz's now empty classroom. He didn't look up as I approached, nor acknowledge me as I sat beside him and placed a hand over his own, considerable larger ones, stopping his thumbs from anxiously twiddling around each other.

There was silence, not even the footsteps of students in the hallways could be heard. I couldn't take it.

"I don't know what to say to you, Beck." I said honestly, launching right into the speech I'd tried to quickly plan as I searched for him, needing to explain myself. "It's not like I set out to take Jade away from you, it just happened. I'd say I'm sorry but… I really like her, and care for her and-"

"I get it, Tori." He cut me off, his stilled hands moving to hold the one I had placed over them, his gaze remaining straight ahead of him. "I really do. It's just… it's not easy. We were together for over two years, and I still care for her, myself. It might not be the same as it was before, I admit that, but I do still care for Jade."

"I know." I whispered. Anyone with half a brain knew Beck cared for Jade. "And she cares for you too, she just-"

"Has a weird way of showing it, yeah." He huffed out a soft laugh.

We stayed quiet; our hands still clasped together, Beck still looking forward as I watched him. He was the same Beck as ever, but he looked more tired than usual, more… alone. There was the shade of dark circles forming under his eyes, his hair looked a little less well kept than it would normally be; had he always looked this way and I never noticed? Or, was it something else?

The prang of guilt stabbed at my stomach again; I never meant to hurt him, the last thing I wanted to do was hurt anyone with this, yet that is exactly what had happened. He sighed, his shoulders slumping as he finally faced me and, to my surprise, there wasn't the sadness I'd expected to see in his dark brown eyes. Either he was a much better actor than he was given credit for, or he really was taking it better than I kept thinking.

"It's weird, seeing her with someone else." Beck admitted. "Especially you, Tori. You can't deny that you two never got on to start with."

"I tried." I defended. It was no secret that I practically got on my knees and begged for Jade's friendship not so long ago. "It was mainly Jade pushing me away."

Beck smiled, a glimmer of humour in his eyes. "That's true. And, now I think about it, I should've seen this coming. Jade was more or less the same with me when we first met. I was the perfect little actor boy and she couldn't stand it… although, she was never as harsh to me as she has been to you." He shook his head. "And Cat, for that matter. She found Cat so irritating, and now the girl knows more about her than she knows about herself!"

"That seems to be true." I nodded; where would we be now without our little red headed friend?

Beck stood suddenly, my hand falling from the loose grip he'd been holding it in to land in my lap. "Look, Tori." He placed a hand on my shoulder, a determined look now colouring his eyes. "I'll get over this, it'll take some time to get used to, I know, but I'll get over it. As for Jade, just take care of her, won't you?"

"Of course I will." I replied surely, also scrambling to my feet. "Without a doubt."

"Good." His lips twitched, a smile trying to make another appearance. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, indicating our fellow students beyond the door. "People can be real arseholes, so you've gotta be careful, yeah? Don't listen to the shit they have to say."

I laughed softly. "I'm sure Jade will happily murder anyone who has something to say. She's already threatened the tongue thing."

Beck smirked. "Yeah, there's that." He clapped his hand on my shoulder. "Go on then, get back to your girlfriend. I don't think she'd be too pleased with you spending too much time with her ex rather than her."

He tried to push me away in the direction of the door but, before he could, I wrapped my arms around his neck, pulling him into a bone-crushing hug and standing on my tip toes to kiss him on the cheek. He chuckled and draped his arms over my waist, hugging me back.

"Thank you, Beck." I whispered in his ear, before pulling away.

"Any time, kiddo. Any time."

Xxx

It was the end of the day and I was stood at my locker, putting my books back and taking out the homework I had to do that night. By the time I'd finished talking to Beck, the lunch break was over and I'd only just managed to catch up to Jade and the others to tell them what had happened before we had to go to our separate classes. Cat had hopped up and down on the spot, clapping her hands and giggling in the way that only she could. Andre and Robbie just looked bewildered, obviously still coming to terms with what had been announced, while Jade smiled, muttering something that sounded like 'silly boy', before surprising me by kissing me on the cheek then bidding us goodbye to get to her lesson. Maybe I did smile a bit goofily after that, according to the teasing I got from Andre, but who cares?

The news about our relationship quickly spread through the school like wild fire, along with the pictures and videos of our kiss, and the many rumours that followed. I was yet to really hear or see any of the things that were being passed around from student to student, and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know, but I still had plenty of people coming up to me asking if it were true. There was something immensely pleasing in not having to deny it anymore, answering them with a straight "Yes, Jade and I are together." to which everyone either raised their eyebrows in disbelief, congratulated me, or scoffed and walked away. I shrugged at that; it was their choice whether they believed it or not, but at least the truth was finally out there, and it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders, even if this was only our fourth official day of being together.

"Vega!" I was snapped out of my thoughts by the familiar sound of my girlfriends' voice calling me from across the hallway. I looked up to see her slam her locker shut and strut towards me, many eyes not-so-discreetly following her as she went, one hand holding the strap of her bag while the other clutched a rectangular package I couldn't quite make out.

"West." I replied when she neared.

She came to a halt in front of me, slamming my locker too, scooping down to place a quick kiss on my lips before stepping back to wave a dvd case in my face, the cover of which blurred in my vision as it was way too close and being waggled from side to side.

"I _finally_ got a copy for 'Psycho' on dvd!" I could hear the smirk in her voice. "So, I'm coming round yours to watch it."

I snatched the plastic case from her hands, its progress back and forth making me dizzy. "And why do you have to watch it at my house?" I asked, cringing. I wasn't good with horror films.

"Because you have a better tv than I do." She said nonchalantly.

"I don't know… I've got homework…" I wavered, torn between wanting to spend my time with Jade and not wanting nightmares.

"Come on, it's a classic!" Jade pleaded then leaned in to whisper in my ear. "I'll hold your hand during the scary parts."

I rolled my eyes, giving in. "Fine. But be prepared to hold my hand for pretty much the whole film."

"That can be arranged." She grinned and, ignoring Trina's cries of '_Oi! I thought you were coming home with me_!', she grabbed my wrist, dragging me off to her car.

Seems like horror movies were something I was going to have to build up a tolerance for, but if Jade was there to hold me for the scary parts, then, I'm sure I'd survive.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Well, that's all, folks! Well, for _Just a Stage Kiss_at least. Because, never fear, a sequel is planned! So, don't kill me just yet, or you'll never get it =P**

Aaah, it's hard to let this one go, I've become so attached! But to continue, I feel I need to write a sequel instead of letting this get stale.

**So, what do you think?**

**This is the first multi-chapter fanfiction I've ever finished, so thank you for sticking by and reading this all the way through (I'm assuming you haven't just skipped to the end =P) I've said it before, but all of your reviews, favourites, alerts and everything means so much to me and if it weren't for your demands I may have given up, so I guess you've got yourselves to thank too.**

**Okay, I'm rambling. So, this is goodbye for now, and I'll hopefully see you for the sequel!**

**3xxxWellWishesxxx**


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